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THE RECONSTRUCTION
OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

VOLUME II

THE RECONSTRUCTION
OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

BY.
ROLAND G. USHER, PH.D.

INSTRUCTOR IN HISTORY, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

VOLUME II

NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1910

v. 2

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published, June, 1910

CONTENTS

VOLUME II
BOOK SECOND (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER PAGE

VII JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY 3

VIII ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION 20

BOOK THIRD

VINDICATION OF RECONSTRUCTION

I. LEGAL OBSTACLES TO THE AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTI
CAL INCOMES 53

II. THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605 74

III. THE GUNPOWDER PLOT AND THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 89

IV. PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO ECCLESIASTICAL REFORM... 113
V. ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION, 1607 134

VI. RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610 154

VII. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED 175

VIII. THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS 192

IX. STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608 206

X. DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609 230

XI. THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610 AND THE AUGMENTATION OF EC
CLESIASTICAL INCOMES 246

XII. THE RESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION 263/

APPENDICES

I. CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS 273

The Precedent for the Canons of 1604 273

Precedents for Visitation Articles 289

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Precedent for Canon XXXVI of the Canons of 1604 ... 293

The Precedent for the Oath of Allegiance 310

II. CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS 325

Orders of 1593 325

"A Note of Diverse Thinges Considerable About the Execution

of the Late Canons, etc. " 327

III. THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE 331

"The Bishopps Proceedings and Opinions Towching those

things which were Comitted to theire Consideracon. " 331

An anonymous account in favor of the bishops, Hampton

Court Conference 335

Puritan Accounts of the Hampton Court Conference 338

IV. A LIST OF PURITAN COMPLAINTS PRIOR TO 1604 355

V. PURITAN MANIFESTOES 358

"Advice tending to Reformation, " 358

"Directions from the Brethren in London, 1603, 14 July". . 359

Action of the Northamptonshire Classis, July, 1603 361

"The Puritans' Directions to Avoyde the Proceedinges of

the Byshopps," 362

VI. WHITGIFT'S LETTER OF 1597 CONCERNING BANCROFT'S PRE
VIOUS CAREER 366

VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY 370

INDEX.. 417

BOOK SECOND (Continued)
RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER VII

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

Contemporaries were by no means agreed as to the number of
ministers deprived. Rudd, the Bishop of Chester, said, in the Con
vocation of 1604, that it was "bruited abroad" that the Puritans
who would refuse to conform were ' ' diners hundred in number, ' ' *
while John Burgess wrote to James that "six or seauen hundred
of the ablest ministers in the land are like to be put out. " 2 On the
other hand, Nathaniel Bacon declared in the House of Commons in
March, 1605-6, after the deprivation, that two hundred and sixty
ministers had actually been deprived f Henry Yelverton charged
Bancroft to his face, at a conference of the two houses of Parlia
ment, with depriving three hundred4; and in June, 1607, it was
said in debate, "that three hundred (were) deprived, suspended
or silenced. ' ' 5 The author of the tract, The Altar of Damascusf
gives the number deprived as three hundred, though the Reverend
Samuel Hieron, in his Short Dialogue, says "the number of such
as are deprived, silenced, suspended, and admonished, amounts to
the some of two hundred seventy-five at the least . . . besides many
others that are in question, and many others who being of the same
iudgment and practice are like to be talked withal." From the
Dialogue between an old Protestant and a new Formalist (p. 59)
we learn that "of those already remoued, restrained or refused to
be admitted, their names I say being taken the first of November,
1605, amounted to two hundred seventy and upward, and yet there
were eight Bishoppricks whereof it could not yet be learned what
had been done in them. ' '

The sympathisers with the Church, have on the other hand, found
comfort in the statement of Archbishop Spotiswood of Glascow.8
"Let me add that which I was afterward told by Richard Bancroft,

iHarleian MSS. 677, f. 41. 5 Commons Journals, I, 385.

2 8. P. Dom. Jac. I, VIII, no. 85. « History of the Church of Scotland,

3 Commons Journals, I, 285. 479.

4 Lambeth MSS. 445, f. 424.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Archbishop of Canterbury, . . . that when the Rolls were brought
in of those that stood out and were deposed, which was some years
after, they were found to be forty-nine in all England, whereas the
ministers of that kingdom are reckoned nine thousand and above."
Yelverton also reported to the House of Commons, in 1606, that
Bancroft himself replied to the charge of depriving three hun
dred, by alleging that only sixty had been deprived who were fac
tious.1 In any strict sense, none of these statements are evidence,
for they are all hearsay, but those quoted from Bancroft come di
rect and seem to be more trustworthy than the others. Nevertheless,
while the Puritan statements may not be literally correct, the im
pression derived from them may be more nearly the truth than that
obtained from the very low figure cited from Bancroft's own lips.
A certain looseness of terminology based, perhaps, on an ignorance
of ecclesiastical procedure has been responsible for many of the
extreme statements of later writers.2 Bancroft says explicitly, for
ty-nine or less than sixty "deprived;" Hieron says two hundred
and seventy-five "deprived, silenced, suspended, and admon
ished," a phrase nearly repeated in the statement of two hundred
seventy "remoued, restrained, or refused to be admitted." These
figures, however, do not relate to the same thing: only forty-nine
might have been deprived and yet two hundred seventy-five or three
hundred might have been deprived, suspended, silenced and ad
monished. Nevertheless, it has often been asserted that three hun
dred were deprived, and that Bancroft's statement was ridiculously
small, while the Church writers have, on the other hand, been as
ready to turn the story round.3 In reality, there were various

1 Lambeth MSS. 445, f . 424. explicitly that the figures set oppo-
' ' Where we said the number was site each county refer to the ' ' num-
three hundred, and his Grace an- ber of preachers . . . which before
swered, not above sixty, and against the beginning of this last parliament
them opposed 10,000 and that these (i. e. before March, 1604) witnessed
sixty were factious. ' ' under their own handwriting their

2 Another sort of carelessness has desire to petition for the removing of
been responsible for the constant use, them" (the ceremonies). Yet this
in this connection, of the figures 746 list, which does not seem trustworthy
for the ministers deprived, (e. g. Ur- in any connection, has been quoted
wick, Nonconformity in Cheshire, p. and used for every conceivable pur-
viii) and many of the local histories pose by Puritan writers, invariably
contain notes of various large totals without acknowledgment. It certain-
deprived in that county, all of ly cannot refer to the deprivations,
which can be traced to a table of Pu- 3 Dr. Gardiner has adopted the Pu
ritan ministers in An Abridgment of ritan view. (History of England, I,
the Book of the Lincolnshire Puritans 197.) "It has been calculated that
of 1605, p. 52. But the tract states about three hundred of the clergy

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITPI MERCY

grades of ecclesiastical censure, of which deprivation was the last
and most severe and alone voided the benefice. Comparatively
few might have been deprived and yet a large number might have
been suspended and admonished. Both statements, properly un
derstood, may be true, for they refer to different things.

A very careful compilation of figures has been made by select
ing from the most trustworthy sources1 the actual number of minis
ters who had been summoned or who were thought to be noncon-
f ormable, with a view of finding how many men might have been pro
ceeded against. It should not be forgotten that every minister, who
was properly Puritan, felt himself threatened by the orders to en
force conformity and that therefore very nearly the whole strength
of the party ought to be found in the estimate. The tally of 297
men2 gives nearly the figure we meet so often in Puritan accounts,
and is very near the 281 men whose names are now known as adhe
rents of the party. The figure 300, therefore, which we meet so
4 often, is more likely the number of men who believed themselves to
be threatened than the number who were actually proceeded against
by the bishops.

were ejected. ' ' In his footnote, he
adds, ' ' the number has been esti
mated as low as forty-nine; but the
arguments in Vaughan's Memorials
of the Stuarts seem to me conclusive
in favour of the larger number. To
the authorities quoted there may be
added the petition of the Warwick
shire ministers (S. P. Dom. XI, 68)
who speak of twenty-seven being sus
pended in that country alone; though
the Bishop expressed his sorrow for
that which he was forced to do. ' '
This last is not quite literally true.
The petition reads : ' ' who are allreadie
for ye most part suspended . . . and
doe all expect presentlie to be fullie
depriued. ' ' The reference is wrongly
given to volume XI instead of to
volume XII. It will be noted that
Dr. Gardiner has made no use of the
voluminous correspondence at Hat-
field. The passage from Vaughan re
ferred to seems to be the following:
' ' It was affirmed during this reign
and apparently without contradic
tion (?) that more than three hun
dred preachers were at this time de
prived of their livings, or silenced

and exposed with their families to the
miseries of want. " " Dr. Heylin,
whose authority unsupported is worth
less (Aer. Kediv. 367), has attempted
to reduce the number to something
less than a sixth of that amount. The
Puritans, as a matter of course, were
concerned to demonstrate the impolicy
and cruelty of these measures and
that object would not be promoted by
underrating their sufferings. The op
ponents of the Puritans . . . (re
duced) the story of Puritan wrongs
to the narrowest possible compass. ' '
(I, 144, London, 1831.)

1 The holograph reports of the
Bishops to the Council, the original
petitions of the ministers and gentry.

2 The list is included in the table
already printed in Book I, Chap. XI.
Some of the figures seem to be very
much too large, but probably only
make good the deficiencies elsewhere.
After all, such estimates were, in
1604, precisely what they are now,
guess-work. No complete census of
the Puritan party had been made
and probably they now themselves
first obtained accurate information.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

The number of the deprived, as gathered from the Institution
Books and from the bishops ' reports to Bancroft and Cecil, is under
the archbishop's estimate, rather than above it. Fifteen were de
prived in the diocese of Peterborough, and the Bishop thought it
necessary to apologize to the Council for his severity by explaining
that the great bulk of the obstinate Puritans were in his diocese.
Some five or six in London, eight in Lincoln, five in Exeter, eight
in Norwich, six in Chichester, and one in Canterbury,1 make up a
total of forty-eight men actually deprived and probably some dozen
over the rest of England, for which we have no explicit information,
would easily bring the total to about sixty. The apology of the
Bishop of Peterborough adds credit to this estimate, for according
to it, he did deprive two or three times as many as the other bishops,
and the agreement of the episcopal records with the Bishop's let
ters increases our faith in his veracity. Several men deprived were
later allowed to resume their cures, and thus it became clear that
about sixty men were at first deprived, but that, in 1609, when the
final returns were given in by the bishops, the number certified
was forty-nine.

Further to confirm this verdict, we may examine the records of
institutions. Might it not be true that the bishops only deprived
sixty and that Bancroft added considerably to the total during the
Archiepiscopal Visitation which followed from May to October, 1605,
and when, as a matter of law, the bishops were suspended from ex
ercising their functions and the complete control of the whole
Church passed into the hands of the Archbishop and his Visitors ?
But the record of the institutions made by Bancroft during this
Visitation, as preserved in his official Register at Lambeth Palace,
shows eight deprivations for the whole of England and Wales, six
of which were in the diocese of Chichester and have been already
counted in the figures above given. The Bishop of Chichester died
before depriving the Puritans and the Archbishop took the final
steps during the vacancy of the See. In all, Bancroft made fifty-
two institutions, eight because of deprivation, one because of ces
sion, twelve from resignation, twenty from death, and eleven because
the cure was vacant. Even had the whole fifty-two been depriva
tions, no such total would have been reached as many of the Puri-

1 These figures were compiled from the Institution Books, of the radons

dioceses.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

tans claimed. A further tabulation of the institutions in London,
Norwich, Lincoln, Peterborough and Canterbury (the diocese),
shows that no other total than sixty deprivations is consistent with
the general trend of ecclesiastical administration. The majority
of all institutions were made because of the death of the previous
incumbent, and, if the forty-one institutions in the diocese of Nor-
ber would still be nine short of the ministers claimed by the Puri
tans as threatened in Suffolk alone.

Again, it seems possible that this total of three hundred deprived
was reached by the pressure put upon the ministers to resign or cede
their benefices, so that the effect of deprivation was produced with
out the actuality.1 But despite the fact that the number of resigna
tions was large during the years 1605 and 1606, especially at Peter
borough, it was only a slight increase over the years which preceded
and followed, and, unless the process of virtual removal was begun
before the passage of the Canons and continued after 1605, as no
one has yet claimed, the theory must be rejected. The number of
resignations, cessions, and the like, seems plainly to be due to the
attempt to exchange benefices held in plurality between the clergy
men of different dioceses so as to lessen the scandal of nonresi-
dence. Another possible conjecture is readily seen to be of no value.
In the records, are always a number of entries of institutions where
no reason is assigned for the vacancy of the benefice. Might it not
be true that the Bishop, eager to conceal the actual figures, had
chosen this method of secreting them? Here, however, the largest
number of unexplained entries at Norwich occurred during the
years 1603 and 1607, when the Bishop could not have had any such
intentions, while in the years 1605 and 1606, only one and two en
tries respectively, out of forty and forty-one, were unaccounted for.
Again, if a large number of men had been suddenly deprived, and
their benefices filled with the more conformable, we should naturally
expect to find the general total of institutions in these years greatly
exceeding the normal number. Yet, though there were forty-one
institutions at Norwich in 1605, and forty in 1606, there were
thirty-nine in 1603 and forty-nine in 1607, the difference in the total
being regulated apparently by the ' variation in the number of

i Only two cases of this are forth- Spicer of Coginshoe, Northampton-
coming and these are not clear. shire, ceded his benefice October 26,
Thomas Hieron of Marlowe Magna, 1608. The dates, however, are either
Bucks, resigned in 1604 and John too early or too late.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

deaths — thirty in 1607 against sixteen in 1605. On all these counts,
there seems to be reason to believe that the figures given by the
Archbishop to Yelvertoii and to Spotiswood were substantially
correct.

Undoubtedly the whole body of Puritan ministers felt themselves
in danger of deprivation, and the recurrence of the figure 300 may
be interpreted as designating the number who feared deprivation.
Nevertheless, the whole three hundred were not even suspended,
much less deprived, and the chief evidence lies in the fact that a
considerable proportion of them conformed. The Bishop of
Peterborough wrote to the Privy Council that he had persuaded
as many to conform as he had deprived,1 fifteen, and this too, in a
diocese which was supposed to contain more obstinate and wilful
Puritans than any other in England.2 Almost all the bishops sent
up to London similar reports of conversions, but failed to give
figures. Still, inasmuch as the county of Essex and the diocese of
Peterborough contained the staunchest Puritans in England, and,
inasmuch as from one-half to three-quarters of them conformed,
we shall not be far astray if we place the number suspended or
silenced, in some degree for more or less of a year, at about one
hundred, or a third of the number threatened, thus leaving a good
margin for error.

Still more pregnant evidence that there was no wholesale sus
pension or deprivation of the Puritans lies in the fact that the
churchwardens continued after the year 1605 as before, to present
•large numbers of ministers for not wearing the surplice and for
•characteristic Puritan failings of various types. Despite the love,
which it is claimed that these congregations evinced for the deprived
ministers, we find the people, and even the wardens, presenting
to the Bishop, at the earliest opportunity, these very men who it
is said were deprived, for the very offences which are said to have
caused the deprivations. The wardens of the churches served by
such Puritans as Travell, Gibson, Greenwood, Allen, Chalenor,
Cutbert, Smart, Sweet, Hulse, Sherman, and others, promptly re~
ported that "their late minister continues still unconformed and
disobedient to the lawes ecclesiasticall of this Realme." Those min-

i A sample of the wild rumours thirty in Suffolk. If this was done,

afloat appears in the newsletter in it is inconceivable that no trace of it

Hatfield MSS. 104, f. 19, stating that should appear in the Records,

the Bishop of Norwich had deprived 2 Hatfield MSS. 104, f. 30.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

isters who preached after their suspension were, by their own
wardens, brought to book with the members of the congregation
who had supported them. It is inconceivable that all the pressure
of the hierarchy could ever have secured such presentments, had the
wardens and the great majority of the parish been really of that
frame of mind which the Puritan utterances attributed to them.
The men who were not deprived but still continued nonconformable
shared this treatment. John Knewstubbs, the spokesman of the
party at the Hampton Court Conference, neither conformed nor was
deprived. "I am to entreat you to provide for Mr. Knewstubbs,
yf you may," wrote Bedell to Ward on November 26, 1604, "any
young man yt would be his curate to teach in his parish that would
weare ye Surplice. ' ' * And in the very next year after the depriva
tions, the wardens of Cockfield presented to the Bishop, "John
Knewstubbes for not wearing the surplesse nor useth the signe of
the crosse. " At Watford, Hertfordshire, was beneficed a most
ardent nonconformist, Anthony Watson, whose wardens were of
his ways of thinking but whose congregation was not, for they in
formed the Archdeacon that Watson * ' hath not worn the surplesse :
he hath omitted the cross in baptism : and he administers the com
munion to the people standing." Yet Watson was not deprived,
though he was censured and his churchwardens compelled to do
penance. By 1606. he had actually "provided his habit according
to the Canons," but was nevertheless presented by the people "for
not wearing his surpless always, for not having a cloke with sleeves
and for not having a square cap. ' ' 3 Similar complaints were regis
tered against most of the Essex and Suffolk ministers with whose
names we are familiar.

Moreover, we have, in the diary of Adam Winthrop,4 a stout
Puritan, and the father of that great nonconformist, John Win
throp, the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay in New England,
the record of the thoughts and doings of a man who lived in just
that section of Essex and Suffolk where the Dedham and Braintree
Classes had nourished and where these Puritans whose names are
well known to us were beneficed. His diary is complete for the

1 Tanner MSS. 75, f. 129. * Printed in the Appendix to the

2 Visitation Kecords, Norwich, Arch- Life and Letters of John Winthrop,
deaconry of Sudbury. 1606, and also T, 418. The original paper book is
1611. Additional MSS. 37419. The part

•^Visitation "Records preserved at here used begins with f. 30.
St. Albans.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

years 1604 to 1610 but he records no wide-spread feeling of alarm
over the contemplated loss of the preachers he listened to so gladly,
no lament over their removal or over the cruel treatment they en
dured. Instead we learn from time to time, that he had heard
Mr. Knewstubbs, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Bird or Mr. Culverwell as visiting
preachers. It is very unlikely that he would have been ignorant
of any considerable agitation among the people over the predica
ment of their clergy or that, if known, he would have failed to
record it. Had these men been silenced, suspended, or deprived,
they could not have continued to preach undisturbed all the suc
ceeding years, nor, had they lacked a cure, could they have been
regularly presented to the Bishop for their nonconformity. Most
astonishing of all, the Bishop apparently took no notice of these
frequent presentments, which would certainly have provided him
with every necessary pretext for the deprivation of all these non
conformists, if he had really desired to proceed against them.

If only sixty were deprived and a hundred suspended, silenced,
I and admonished, out of three hundred and fifty ministers, the
bishops could hardly be charged with carrying matters to an ex
treme. Moreover, the treatment of the men who were deprived
seems to have been lenient. On March 12, 1605, the Archbishop di
rected all the bishops to arrange matters with the next incumbent
"that the party so deprived may have two or three months liberty
to remain still in the parsonage or vicarage house, if he have no
other of his own : that so he may have that time to provide for him
self, and not be thrust out into the streets upon a sudden. " 1 Fuller
tells a story of Bancroft which he affirms he had from the minister
himself who was concerned.2 This man went to the Archbishop
privately and told him that "it went against his conscience to con
form, being then ready to be deprived. Which way, saith the Arch
bishop, will you live, if put out of your Benefice? The other
answered, he had no way but to goe a begging and to put himself
on Divine Providence. Not that, (saith the Archbishop) you shall
not need to doe, but come to me, and I will take order for your
maintenance/' "It is a greate greife to us all," wrote the Bishop
of Lincoln, " (if ther were any other remedie) to remoue them from
theire Lyvinges, by reason whereof theire wyves and children, whoe
haue geuen noe cause of offence, nether yet are hable to shift for
i Cardwell, Annals, IT, 101. - Church History, Bk. X, p. 57.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

themselves, shold be distressed. " 1 A petition from the gentry of
Lancashire, of much the same tenor as the ill-fated Northampton
shire petition, was presented to Salisbury; yet, although he might
easily have punished the writers, he wrote them a courteous letter
explaining that, if they would only show the ministers that they
themselves preferred conformity to nonconformity, they would be
astonished to see how soon those men would submit.2

At least half a dozen of the men deprived were at once readmit-
ted, showing either that they conformed or that the bishop was
lenient enough, having satisfied policy by demonstrating his ability
and will to deprive them, to be content with half assent. Robert
Travell and Thomas Gibson were deprived by the Bishop of Peter
borough and readmitted on the very same day.3 On February 1,
George Pike, the vicar of Dunnington, had been deprived by the
Bishop of Lincoln, who on March 14 inducted a new incumbent.
But on March 29, we find "George Pike, M. A. lately vicar of
Donington, in Com: Lincoln: admitted preacher," and on May 15
read of his readmission to his benefice. Thomas Forman, rector
of Cotes Parva, was sequestrated on April 26 and reinstated on
May 24: but Anthony Nutter, deprived in February, 1604-5,
waited till September, 1606 for his reinduction. Among all the
Puritans none had been more notoriously disobedient and active
than Arthur Hildersham. He had been one of the instigators of the
early Classis movement; had disseminated the Millenary Petition,
the Advice tending to Reformation, and the Manifesto of 1604 ; was
' strongly suspected of having had a hand in the writing of those
documents and of instigating the Sussex petitioners of October,

1603. Apparently, no one had less reason to expect clemency than
he. He had been silenced by the Bishop of Lincoln in December,

1604, suspended in February, 1605, and later in the year, deprived.
Yet the very next year, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield al
lowed him to preach at a sort of prophesy in Repton, in Derbyshire,
and Burton-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, and the year 1608 found
him once more in his own pulpit at Ashby-de-la-Zouche.4 Alex
ander Cooke had achieved notoriety by his public declaration that
he would put a curb into Bancroft's jaws, and, being very obstinate,

i Hatfield MSS. 110, f. 74, April 3 April 30, and June 25.

12, 1605. •'Brook, Lives of the Puritans, II,

2Hatfield MSS. 110, f. 117, draft 382.

of Cecil, April 30, 1605.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

had been deprived; but by 1606, he had been restored and, aston
ishing enough, we learn from the Visitation Books of that year,
that he had "provided his habit according to the canon." John
Harrison of Histon, Cambridgeshire, was about to be deprived, and
sentence, in fact, was on the point of being pronounced, when it
was recalled.1

One of the chief Puritans in Essex, Richard Rogers, threatened
with deprivation, was saved by the intercession of Lord Knollys.
"It greatly troubles me," he wrote, "that after labouring be
twixt thirty and forty years in the ministry, I am now accounted
unworthy to preach." He seems to have been temporarily sus
pended, however, for May 30, 1606, we read, "if I preach no more.
I heartily thank God for my liberty, both at home and abroad for
this year and a half and I hope with some fruit. The bishop hath
been my friend." On April 2, 1607, he recorded the "painful news
of our Bishop Vaughan's death, who for twenty-eight months, be
ing all the time he continued, he permitted all the godly ministers
to live peaceably and to enjoy liberty in their ministry."2 Eliza
beth Mountain was very loath to present any one to a benefice from
which a Puritan had been deprived, until he had time to think over
his stand, and so, having waited until her right of presentation had
nearly expired, she sent word to the Bishop of her desires, who at
once resigned to her his right of presentation which would become
valid as soon as hers lapsed.3 Mr. Collins wrote to John Coke, a
Puritan gentleman, "The Bishop of Hereford has not taken away
my letter of orders, he has only hindered my ministry in his dio
cese ... I pray you be my remembrancer for what liberty in the
ministry may be had above with the Archbishop." 4 One good lady,
Sarah Venables, was so touched at the thought of the needs of the
deprived ministers that she bequeathed all her property for a fund
to be administered in their behalf, and we do not learn that the
Archbishop gave her relatives any countenance in their attempt to
break the will.5

Yet, while we grant that not a great many were suspended or

1 Cooper, Athencp Cantabrigienses, 46, July 3, 1605.

II, 477. 4 Report on the Manuscripts of the

2 Brook, Lives of the Puritans, II, Earl of Cowper, I, 63, January
233. (London, 1813) from manuscript 1606-7.

diary. r> S. P. Dom. Jac. I, 37, no. 113;

3 Eeport on the 'Reo.ulieu MS8. p. 45, no. 147.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

deprived, that many conformed and many remained in the Church
without either conforming or suffering deprivation, and that those
who were suspended or deprived received lenient and merciful
treatment at the hands of the bishops, were not the deprivations all
a mistake of policy? Did not Bancroft exclude from the Church
or antagonise that great moderate wing of the Puritan party which
contained the element best worth uniting with the Establishment?
Did he not drive them into radical revolt instead of compelling them
to conform? Such questions, often asked and often answered in
the affirmative, assume, in the first place, that the Puritans were
not only very numerous but were also the cream of the English
clergy for piety and learning, and that they possessed the heart
felt allegiance of a large minority of the English people. They
imply the presence in the situation of factors which would have
been of crucial importance had they existed, but which, as a matter
of fact, cannot be demonstrated to have been present.

Not only wrere the Puritan clergy few in numbers and by no
means highly educated as a whole, but the men deprived and sus
pended cannot be said to have been the very best of the Puritans.
The names of Travell, Gibson, Allen, Chalenor, Cutbert, Smart,
Swett, Hulse, Sherman, Cooke, Ruddiard, Baldock, Ridout, Wood,
all of whom were deprived, would not be known to us were it not
for the Books of Institutions, and what little we can glean from
the Visitation Records. They were not the leaders, nor the writers
of books, nor the men of greatest learning. In truth, the bishops
were careful not to deprive the prominent, pious, and learned, in
order that the list of ' ' martyrs ' ' might have as few imposing quali
ties as possible. The men who suffered were, in the main, the rash-
est and least commendable of the radicals. Of the great majority
against whom he proceeded, the Bishop of Peterborough wrote to
the Privy Council, "The rest by me suspended are jurats and merci-
narye readers. The most of them haue taken no degree of schooles,
some are Batchelers of arts, very few masters of Arts, but all ex
tremely willf ull and contemptuous. ' ' x While some allowance might
be made for the Bishop's natural bias, his statement is valuable
because it confirms what our list of ministers tells us, and gives us
some reason for believing that our information is fairly complete.

i Bishop of Peterborough to Cranbourn, February 16, 1604-5 Hat-
field MSS. 104, f. 30. Holograph.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

On the other hand, Raignolds conformed but refused to subscribe
in a vigorous and courageous letter to Bancroft, and yet was not
molested. Nor was Knewstubbs troubled, and Chaderton, although
at one time he felt himself threatened, managed to retain his place
without seriously compromising his conscience. Ward, Bedell,
Sparke, Feilde, Downame, and Harrison were not molested.

If the view that the expulsion of the Puritans injured the
Church rests upon the premise that they were a vital part of it, it
even more depends upon their leaving the Establishment, and this
they certainly did not do. Indeed, there are few facts of Puritan
history better and more firmly attested than the reluctance of these
men to leave the Church, although none of them were able to approve
it fully. Every petition, every attempt at legal obstruction, every
essay to prolong the time of probation gave only additional testi
mony that they were loath to be ejected from the Established
•Church. And they did not go. The leaders were not molested,
and others descended to casuistry in an attempt to satisfy the bishop
without really promising what he wished.1 Henry Jacobs published
a book, and was compelled by the Government to retract certain ex
pressions in it, and his retraction ended with the words : ' ' Howso
ever I will allways heerafter behave myselfe quietly and as one
carefull of the Churches peace, God assisting me." What Jacobs
took this to mean appears sufficiently from a copy he retained and
underneath which he wrote, "I will allwayes heerafter behave my
self quietly which also I have don alwayes heeretofore, I praise
God. ' ' Such a promise was really no promise at all, and yet this
man, who did a thing quite incomprehensible to us, had an unusually
sensitive conscience for the year 1605. When Bedell was summoned
before the bishop's chancellor at Norwich and urged to subscribe,
he replied that he had already done so years before and "had not
revolted from yt, yt I was conformable as much as by law I was
bounde ; that he had no more reason to urge me to subscribe than
any minister in ye Diocesse. " He received a respite of nearly two
months, although he frankly told the official that he knew no reason
why he should then be urged to subscribe any more than at that
very moment. As he explained to Ward, "I refused not (nor doe

1 This must be owned in fairness to as well as with our right.
the Catholics and to the bishops; let 2 Lambeth MSS. 113, f. 243. AprL

ns be impartial with our left hand 4, 1605.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY .

not) the thing, but to do yt upon his urging besides law, etc." He
himself was willing enough to subscribe, "notwithstanding I haue
yet forborne, least I should preiudice others by my president yt per
haps are not of yt indifferency in thes matters with myself e, ' n and
he begs Ward to procure for him a proper clerical cap and hood
with which the chancellor would be satisfied. "It is, in truth,"
Raignolds wrote to Bancroft, "the care of conscience before God
as well as ye credit before men that moveth me, which yeilded wil
lingly to conformity, not to yeild to subscription. ' ' 2

The influence which their actions would have upon others far
more than their own personal disapproval of conformity or sub
scription, kept the leaders and the men of learning and piety from
yielding. Bedell expressed great surprise on hearing from Ward
that Chaderton was in danger of losing his office, "mervayling ye
more thereat, yf as you say he doth hold these matters indifferent
and standeth only upon the offence" to others weaker than he.
This seemed to Bedell a slender reason : " to say nothing yt when ye
gratest part ys likely to be more offended yf these thinges be
equall, and those yt haue sufficient reason shewed and will still
persist are me thinckes no more to be (tolerated?) in their dislike
than Brownists. ' ' 3

Burgess resisted every effort of his Bishop to convert him and
was finally deprived and went into exile. He wrote, however, and
signed on another occasion a submission meant only for the Coun
cil's eyes: — "I doe hould and am persuaded of the crosse in
baptisme and the surpless that as our Church useth them, they bee
not unlawfull though in some men and places inexpedient. . .
For the subscription of the articles of '62, as the law requireth it
and to his Majesties supremacie, I approve it without any eccep-
tion or qualification: and touchinge the third Article about the
booke of common prayer and booke of ordination, doe houlde that
however they haue some thinges in them which cannot singly be
allowed as false translations, etc., yet considered in the purpose

1 Tanner MSS. 75, f . 132 a. March ferent and lawful to be worn. . . .
11, 1604-5. The use of the Cross I say after

2 Lambeth MSS. 929, f. 121. August Baptisme with that Signification and
5, 1605. There is here also another Sense alone in which our Gratious
letter which he had written to the King requireth it, I have rather wisht
Earl of Pembroke on September 2, men to yeild unto for obedience then
1604. "By continual wearing of Cap to leave their charge.'

and Surplice (which I have never re- 3 Tanner MSS. 75, f. 130.

fused) I do show I think them indif-

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

and entention of the Churche of England and reduced to the pro
portions and doctrines which it publiquely professethe, they con-
tayne nothing contrary to the woorde of god."

Of all these men of some eminence Burgess was the only one who
suffered at the bishops' hands; yet, years after, he became a good
churchman, held a prebend at Lichfield Cathedral and published a
book by command of that most strict churchman, Charles I. Ward
remained as Master of Sidney Sussex College, became Lady Mar
garet Lecturer in Divinity, was one of the translators of the Bible,
and even lived to become Chaplain to James I, and one of the ardent
opponents, in Church circles, of Laud and Arminianism. Both
Raignolds and Chaderton also played a conspicious part in the
translation of the Bible. Bedell journeyed in 1607 to Italy, became
acquainted with the famous Sarpi, a man of broad and tolerant
mind; then became Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1623, and
died as Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, valiantly struggling to in
troduce Laud's reforms into the Irish Church. Thomas Sparke,
one of the Puritan advocates at the Hampton Court Conference,
termed by the King a "great nonconformist and a pillar of Puri
tanism," had so impressed James that the latter laboured himself to
convince him of his errors and actually succeeded. Sparke pro
claimed his change of mind publicly and issued a book entitled,
A Brotherly Persuasion to Unity and Uniformity in Judgment
and Practice.2

There were no doubt many moderate Puritans whose experience
was similar to that of George Downame. He had kept himself aloof
from the discussions about the Discipline because he saw that the
result must be "either the disgrace of my ministerie among the
forwarde sort, if I resolved as now I knowe I should haue done, or
the ouerthrowe of my ministerie if I should stand for that disci
pline. Thus was I content to remaine in suspense . . . But when of
late yeares the case was so altered with the time, that a necessitie
was imposed, not onely to resolue, but also to professe my resolu
tion on the one part ; and it was now expected, that I should inf orme
not onely myself but some others also what way to take ; I did then

i"Mr. John Burgess, his profes- edition "newly corrected and en-
Bion."'B. P. Dom. Jac. I, VIII, no. larged, 1607." Tn 1608 (reprinted
86, Original, signed. See also a peti- in 1615) came an answer, An antidote
tion from Burgess to the King, Har- against the Pestiferous Writings of
leian MSS. 677, f. 48 b. all English Sectaries . . . in parti-

2 The copy now extant is the second r.ular against Dr. bparke.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

seriously enter into the studie of these things. Perhaps with an
other mind then some others haue done, and therefore with other
successe. I considered with myselfe, that this Church of England,
wherein I was called to be a minister, did hold and professe all
substantial points of diuinity as soundly as any Church in the
world, none excepted neither in this age nor in the primitiue times of
the Church. And secondly that it hath the testimonie of all other
true Churches. Thirdly that in it the means of saluation are ordi
narily and plentifully to be had. And therefore to make separation
from it, I tooke to be schismaticall and damnable presumption. And
as touching myself, I considered that being in the ministerie, necces-
sitie is laide upon me, and woe be unto mee, if I preach not the
Gospell. Wherefore, I must confesse I studied the controuersies,
wherein the policie of our church is called into question, as one
who meant, if hee were not conuicted with euidence of truth, to bee
as it were the respondent, resoluing not to leaue my standing where
in God had placed mee unlesse by force of argument, I were re-
mooued: Whereas others, hauing (as it seemeth) beene out of loue
with our Church-discipline before, and in affection wholly alien
ated from our Church's gouernours, haue studied these things as
opponents and plaintiffes. And therefore hauing sought a knot
as it were in euerie bulrush, and strained at euerie gnatte, they
haue picked so many quarrels against the Church, and by conse
quent, against their owne ministerie, as that by their opposition,
the Church is depriued of their ministerie and themselues of the
imployment of their giftes, they suffering . . . their places either
to be destitute, or to be occupied with such as they account un
profitable ministers rather then they wil embrace, nay rather then
they wil without preiudice and partiality read, what is truly said
for the defence of our Church. But to return to myselfe, when
with this resolution (which I am persuaded ought to be in the like
case) I had studied some, which are supposed to be the chief trea
tises on both sides: I found on the one side, certaine places of
Scripture drawne as it were by the necke to that side, a few strag-
ling sentences quoted out of the Fathers, and as it were with oares
wherried by these men (looking as one would thinke the other waie)
against the full streame of Antiquitie : some pretie speeches and wit-
tie proofes, which notwithstanding wore . . . meere colours rather

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

than sound arguments. . . Now the arguments which perswaded
me- I haue here set downe. ' ' l

The defection of such men as Sparke and Downame was natural
ly treated by the more radical as rank apostasy, the selling of their
Lord for thirty pieces of silver. But the result of the deprivations,
in fact, far from sending the moderates out of the Church brought
them into it with open protestations of allegiance and statements
of their conviction that the position which the Church had assumed
was not only expedient but consonant with Scripture. Nor did the
majority of the radicals leave the Church: they looked forward
eagerly to the new session of Parliament, began preparing anew
their petitions, their bills for the covert introduction of the Disci
pline, their measures for rendering the Episcopal position un
tenable. While the party had met with a crushing defeat, it had not
yet given up the struggle.

In short, the effect of the enforcement of the new constitution
had been precisely what Bancroft had anticipated and desired: it
had forced the issue, not so much between Church and Puri
tans as between the two wings of the Puritan party. He had, in
truth, made it plain that the Puritans could no longer claim that
their practices were allowable under the law of the Church and
that was indeed a great step gained. Still, though ultimately of
most importance, for the nonce it was inferior to the effect of the
deprivations upon the Puritan party itself. He had split that
body into three parts, the moderates, who unfeignedly joined the
ranks of the churchmen from conviction, once they had been con
strained, by the pressure of events to consider the differences be
tween them; the more conservative "radicals" who were willing
to subscribe for form's and "for safety's sake" without intending
to maintain their practice in consonance with their professions ; and
finally the ultra radicals who had been deprived or suspended.
But another great fact had been established and one of paramount
importance to the Church. It now became clear beyond doubt to
those in authority that the vast majority of the English people,
gentry and laity alike, were in favour of the national Church, as
' by law established. So much indeed Bancroft and Cecil had long

i A Sermon Defending the Honourable Function of Bishops. 1608, pre
face.

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY

believed, but the issue had never before been thoroughly tested. On
the whole, the result of the deprivations was the great strengthen
ing of the Church as an institution, the enormous increase of its
prestige and dignity, an enhanced spirit of loyalty, and a firmer
sense of unity and corporate life among the clergy and officials of
the Establishment.

CHAPTER VIII

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

The deprivation of the Puritans was only one step in the execu-
( tion of the Canons of 1604 and put into operation only a fraction of
their provisions. The practical application of their provisions to
the administrative troubles of the Church was yet to be made.
Indeed, the most important question of all awaited solution. Could
Bancroft put into operation the codification which he had so suc
cessfully made? Canons in plenty had hitherto been promulgated
but they had been void of good effect because they had never been
"-adequately executed. According to the well-established traditions
of the Church, Canons and ordinances were to be actually enforced
'by the visitatorial system and Bancroft, therefore, made in 1605
an Archiepiscopal Visitation of his Province, which did in fact
accomplish much that was important. But such results were
unexpected and unhoped-for.

The visitatorial system, like most administrative forms developed
during the Middle Ages, seemed to the sixteenth century man a
failure, partly because, thanks to the interplay of forces since the
Reformation, it did not work as its framers had intended, but
chiefly because, to the sixteenth century mind, it was not an admin
istrative system at all. It was, in fact, nothing more nor less than
a method of asking questions of the churchwardens. True, the
scope of the Visitation Articles was as wide as that of the ecclesias
tical law itself, or as the exigencies of the situation, and extended
from obedience to the Act of Supremacy and the subscription to the
Thirty-Nine Articles to the failure of some layman to pay the
clerk's wages or to the existence of decayed planking in the
floor of the church and of broken glass in its windows. Their sum
and substance invariably was, — What is the condition of religion
in your parish? — and any reply was germane. True, also, every
member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy could visit his inferiors and
must submit to the visitation of his superiors. It was a form for

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

general use. The rural deans should visit their deaneries; the
archdeacon every three months was to go the rounds of his arch
deaconry; the bishop should send his officers round the diocese
every year to investigate the conduct both of deans and arch
deacons; while the archbishop every three years, in similar
manner, ought to inquire into the diligence of all diocesan officials.

But the presentment registered at Visitation by the church
wardens convicted no one of any crime and exposed him to no
penalty. It established, indeed, a legal presumption against him,
but it was not a process nor even a part of the process by which he
was or could be convicted. The Visitation was purely and simply
a method of obtaining information, and the guilty person was
punished, not for a breach of the Visitation Articles, but for dis
obedience to the Canons, which the culprit should have obeyed and
his disobedience to which the Visitation had revealed. The Visita-
4ion Articles then were not law; they were not even orders issued
by either archbishop or bishop with the idea that any one ought
to obey them as law. Moreover, they inquired only into breaches
of the law and assumed, in medieval fashion, that the great majority
of the clergy willingly conformed to its provisions. They were ex
post facto, and were aimed at detecting, not at preventing, crime.
LThey were negative, not positive ; the passive rather than the active
element of the constitution. Nor did they furnish the only infor
mation upon which the ecclesiastical courts might proceed, for a
man might be convicted quite as legally upon information given by
a private informer, or could be tried ex officio mero upon the
knowledge which the judge himself possessed.

Yet, while it was perfectly true that the old system of Visitations
was cumbrous, awkward, and on the whole a failure, it was the one
administrative link which bound the Church to the past ; it was the
one method of inquiring into the condition of the clergy which was
sanctioned by precedent and tradition. Its weakness had. in truth,
been at the root of the Puritan demands for the erection of a live
Presbyterianism which should really rule the State ecclesiastical;
had been the cause of the scorn of the bishops; and had, in turn,
engendered in the minds of the clergy themselves, bishops included,
a belief that, admirable as was the theology and dogma of the
Church, it was, as an institution, in no sense what it ought to be
and really merited no consideration. Institutionally, this very

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

belief was the worst possible weakness. The old visitatorial system
might be neither symmetrical nor desirable, but it did represent
the vitality and reality of institutional life, not only to the Church
itself, but to the laity. It alone stood for the continuity of admin
istrative life, of administrative forms and traditions, and kept the
Reformers in touch with the medieval church. To Bancroft, it
was a potentiality, a form to be vitalised by a spirit of interdepend
ence, welling forth from and binding together a clergy enthusias
tically loyal to the Church as an institution. In the old and des
pised system lay, he believed, that embryo from which the new
administration must be developed ; out of the ecclesiastical formal
ism of the past could be constructed an institution of power and
symmetry, harmonious with past traditions, adequate for present
needs, commanding the respect of men, and representing in Eng
land the Visible Church of early Christian antiquity.

As an ultimate coercive force, the High Commission might at
. the moment be indispensable ; but in the long run, it must supple-
'' ment, not supplant, the old system. The new vigour, if it must
come from such a body, should be imparted through the recognised
ecclesiastical channels, for something more was at stake than the
convicting of Puritans and the settlement of divorce cases. In
last analysis, the reconstruction of the administrative fabric of the
Church depended for its success upon the maintenance of those
traditional, administrative forms which, to clergy and laity alike,
were synonymous with the very institution itself. If the medieval
system was moribund, it was important to know it ; if vigorous use
and a careful attention to details could awaken a spark of life, that
was a fact of profound significance. Most of all, let no vicar or
bishop attribute to the system the weakness really resultant from
his own ignorance, indifference, and inefficiency ; poor officials could
not operate the best planned institution without confusion or
trouble. The chief fault was not in the system but in the men who
pretended to administer it.1

Such was the courageous fiat which went forth in effect, if not

i The Puritans will find that ' ' the Honourable Function of Bishops,

manifold corruptions which they haue (London, 1608.) See also, Bancroft

taken notice of in the gouernment of to the Bishops, April 30, 1605 Wil-

our Church, being the personal de- kins, Concilia, IV, 414; and his letter

faults not so much of the Bishops to the Bishops of July, 1610, m Card-

themselues as of their officers." G. well, Annals, II, 158.
Downame, A Sermon defending the

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

in actual words, from Lambeth Palace in the spring of the year
1605. It embodied a new policy, for it placed the blame for the
state of affairs not upon the bishops, where Elizabeth had been
inclined to put it,1 nor upon episcopacy as an institution, where
the Puritans declared the fault lay,2 but upon the lower ecclesiasti-
, cal officers and the parish clergy whence in reality the trouble
,: came.3 True, it was no direct and personal fault of theirs, for the
men who were responsible were dead long since. The problem
which Bancroft faced was not that of explaining or extenuating
the state of the Church but of finding some remedy for it. In
truth, the condition of the establishment rested upon the efficiency
and good intentions of the parish clergy and lower ecclesiastical
officials and for their failings they were now to be called to account
in every thing where reform lay within their power. An ignorant
man with a cure worth five pounds a year could not preach learned
sermons, but he could wear the surplice, read the whole service,
subscribe to the Thirty-sixth Canon, and see that the communion
table was decently covered and placed as the law required. It was
necessary that learned men should hold two benefices and be non
resident, but they need not absent themselves for ten months in
the year and leave incompetent curates to do their work.4 The
abuses were bad, although unavoidable, but abuses of the abuses
were not to be tolerated.

The Archbishop further pointed out that the Visitation had other
objects than simply enforcing the law. The great enemies of the
Church lay entrenched in the ignorance of the clergy as to what
the law was, and in the ignorance of the higher officials as to where

1 The Council to the Bishops, Nov- ton, Cranwell, Boothby Pannell,
ember 7, 1573. Cardwell's Annals, Louthbesk and Ludburghe, Mar-
I, 387. broughe, Hallington, Cockerington.

2 Especially W. Travers, A Full and (Archdeaconry of Lincoln, 1600) ;
Plaine Declaration off Ecclesiasticall eight cases in Calcewaithe Archdea-
Discipline. Geneva, 1574, 1580. conry, (diocese of Lincoln, 1601) ; Bo-

3 In the following instances, the zeatt, (Archdeaconry of Bothwell and
vicar or wardens were presented by TTigham, Peterborough, 1605) ; Mop-
the parishioners for not informing at hall, (Archdeaconry of Ely, 1606) ;
the previous visitations of notorious Camlingaye, Ely, parish of St. An-
misdemeanors. Eyall, (Peterborough, drews, (Archdeaconry of Ely, 1608-9) ;
1589) ; Parson Drove, (Archdeaconry Bardney, Beelesbye, (Archdeaconry
of Ely, 1593); Kirkbecke, (Archdea- of Lincoln, 1611.), etc., etc., etc.
conry of Lincoln, 1594); Fendrayton, * Bancroft's orders on this point
Kingston, Trumpington, Over, (Arch- are in his letter to the Bishops of
deaconry of Ely, 1596) ; City of Nor- April 30, 1605, printed in Wilkins,
wich, parish of St. Julian, 1597; Nor- Concilia, IV, 414, from the Kegistrum.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

the law was infringed. Experience had shown that many and
many a vicar who was breaking the law, thought he was conform
ing to it,1 nor was he usually to blame for his ignorance. Most of
the parishes had no copy of the latest Canons, many had not even
•3 a copy of the Queen's Injunctions, which, though half a century
old, still contained much of the law of the Church.2 Where the
changes had been as rapid as they had been since the Reformation
and where modifications, some of them of the first importance, were
made every few years, by statute, by Canon, or by episcopal regu
lations, it was of the utmost importance that the clergy should
know to what they were expected to conform, and it was far more
essential that the churchwardens and laity should be told in plain
terms, stripped of legal verbiage and statutory circumlocutions,
what they and their vicar were supposed to observe. Even if the
parish had procured the needed volumes and had read them, there
was much in the early Elizabethan enactments which would bear
.-. several interpretations, and to leave the local authorities at liberty
to pick and choose was a sure method of spreading nonconformity
under the guise of observing the law. The difficulty of communi
cation over the rough roads of a sparsely populated diocese pre
vented the spread of information as to the technical requirements
as well as news about disobedience to them. Without the Visitation,
the officials, comfortably seated in the Episcopal Court, would know
of a certainty less about the affairs of the parishes twenty miles
off than those parishes would of matters in London.3

1 Ely, 1578, (among the Consistory 30, in some, more) that it would be
Court Books) parishes of Spelfod a very strange thing and therfore
Magna; Pampfford; Dullingham; also very scandalous to bring them
1579, Sawton, Madingley ; 1598, into use againe. ' ' Some idea of the
Peterborough, Northampton Archdea- irregularities in practice can be
conry, Epton; 1605, Peterborough, gathered from the A dmonition to Par-
Archdeaconry Bothwell and Higham, liament, the Certain Articles, and
Bozeatt; 1606, City of Norwich, St. other Puritan tracts, lately reprinted
Ethelred; 1606 Archdeaconry of Suf- by W. H. Frere, and C. E. Douglas
folk, Londham; Lincoln Archdeacon- as Puritan Manifestoes. (1907)

ry, Ludford Magna, 1611, etc., etc. 3 Parker wrote in February, 1567,

2 Dialogue between an old Protes- to Lady Bacon of some shocking
tant and a new Formalist, 55, (1606). abuses in the diocese of Norwich and
"As the subscription hath not been concluded "this matter had been long
much urged of late for many yeares tossed among the people of the two
togither, save upon some few men places thus used. Which I knew not
whom the Bps favoured not : so the of, till my visitors came home again. ' '
Ceremonyes haue growne to such a A clergyman told him that another
disuse in very many Churches (in abuse "was common in all the
some, 10 yeares, in some, 20, in some, country. ' ' Strype, Parker, I, 495.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

These two fundamental difficulties, both based upon ignorance,
Bancroft believed were administratively far more important than
the more spectacular troubles with Puritans and Catholics, for he
saw that the malcontents from conscientious scruples were few,
while he knew that the nonconformists from ignorance and indiffer
ence were legion. Under such circumstances information was more
necessary than coercive force and was an indispensable prerequisite
to its use. Until the culprit was found, it was idle to think of
punishing him. If, by frequent Visitations, the clergy were given
thoroughly to understand what the law was — and the Canons of
1604 furnished a definite and unambiguous law to lay before them
—if they also saw that ample power to enforce the law was latent
somewhere and that it would be used if necessary, there would be
comparatively few cases where more than the ordinary ecclesiastical
censures would be needed to bring the culprit to his senses. It
had always been easy to secure from the clergy and churchwardens
presentments of the laity for all sorts of crimes, but Bancroft now
meant to secure information about the clergy and about the wardens
themselves.

What Bancroft therefore brought into the administration of the
Church was not an innovation of form, nor an attempt to do what
his predecessors had not a legal right to do, but a new feeling of
^.institutional unity, of corporate life, a new quickening and awaken
ing of the administrative instinct and spirit. He gave the ecclesias
tical officials a common cause, — the infusion of life and vigour into
the old system — and roused them to a vivid conception of what the
crisis meant to the Church of the future as well as of the present.
He was himself an able leader, whose knowledge and experience
evoked confidence, whose ideals awakened enthusiasm, and whose
clearness of vision and power of expression clothed his orders in
a form easily comprehended.

Nevertheless, his determination to vitalise the old system was, in
itself, an innovation, for the experience of the previous three
decades had convinced most of the bishops that the Visitation was
moribund. They were willing to admit that it was perhaps
desirable to continue it, but quite unable to believe that it could
ever be anything more than a form. If the Visitors came, if the
questions were asked and answered, if the results were copied out
neatly in a paper book, with a few lines of writing on each folio

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

and with plenty of space for future entries, the officials thought
that they had accomplished all that could be expected. When
Bancroft visited St. Paul's Cathedral in 1598, his informants told
him that the abuses had long existed, had been often complained
of, but were still without remedy because the Visitation was only
a form. The Bishop of Chester also declared that little attention
was paid to his citations to appear and answer for misdemeanours :
his commissions for reform were seldom executed and were never
effectual, while at Visitations "the ecclesiastical proceedinge (was)
voide of all validity and good effect."1

Nevertheless, while little had been accomplished by the Visita
tions since the Reformation, it was not due altogether to the slack
ness of the Episcopate. During the first years of Elizabeth's reign,
Parker and Grindal had made praiseworthy and serious attempts
to put into working order the old administrative system of the
Church. The Visitations were held and some attempt made to
prosecute offenders. But, from the sum total of their experience,
Whitgift reached the conclusion that more strenuous measures
were needed. Consequently, by a renewed insistence on subscrip
tion at ordination and induction, by the use of the Twenty-Four
Articles for the examination of the recalcitrant, by the passage
of the Articles of 1584, 1585, and 1586, and by the promulgation
of the Statutes for the ecclesiastical courts in 1587, he attempted to
strengthen and to systematise ecclesiastical administration. His
efforts ended in the development of the High Commission as an
extraordinary means for the enforcement of ordinary regulations
and in the increase of the number of diocesan commissions. Indeed,
several of the bishops declared that they could administer their
dioceses in no other way and that so useless a form as the Visita
tion might as well be abolished altogether. The neglect of the
Visitations, therefore, which displayed itself in the perfunctory
manner in which they were made and in the failure to proceed
further against the culprits revealed by the inquiries, had its root
in that fundamental difficulty of the ecclesiastical administration—
the necessity of accomplishing one end with the means which were
intended to compass something far less considerable or difficult.

i Tanner MSS. 144, f. 28, (1590) (the Bishop of Norwich's) authority,
Parker wrote, in 1567, to Lady Bacon despised mine to be at the Church s
that certain scandalous clerics "bear- Visitation." February, 1567. Strype,
ing them great under my Lord's Parker. I, 495.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

But the lack of power in the Episcopate, the want of an able leader
thoroughly trained in administrative matters, the powerful inter
ference of the Queen and the Privy Council, and the many demands
on the time and strength of the various bishops for minor political
tasks, — these were, no doubt, powerful contributory causes of this

i negligence during Elizabeth's reign.

The administrative work which Bancroft now undertook had
two definite sides, — first, the codification of the Visitatorial con
stitution in the Canons of 1604 and the Visitation Articles of '1605;
and second the vigorous execution of both in the Visitation of
1605. In an administrative sense, the Visitation Articles of 1605
marked an epoch of much the same sort as the Canons of 1604, and
became certainly the most important single administrative prece
dent of the seventeenth century. The Visitation of 1605 infused
into the old system a vitality which impelled it onward for three
decades with what seemed to be constantly increasing force.

The Canons of 1604, (cix-cxix) systematized the old practice at

\ Visitations. The wardens and sidesmen should be obliged to
present twice a year, but not oftener, (although they might make
voluntary presentments at any time) ; the yearly fee should not
exceed four pence, nor should any one be liable to suit at ecclesias
tical law for honestly presenting offenders. A presentment should
always be made at Easter time by the wardens going out of office
and should on no account be left to the new wardens who could not
have any real knowledge of the condition of affairs. The old
practice of summoning the wardens and asking them various ques
tions to be answered viva voce was also to be stopped. In all cases,
the wardens should now have a copy of the Articles for the Visita-

f tion of the year following and a copy of the oath they were to take,
so that they might collect the information required before they
arrived, and, above all, realise what the law was which the Bishop
wished enforced and what sort of an interpretation he placed upon
it. Recusants and noncommunicants were to be presented yearly

1 without special orders from London and each rank of the hierarchy
was to forward the information without delay to its superiors, so
that, within three months from the date of presentment, a complete
record of all recusants in England might be in the King's hands.
The wardens were to be chosen once a year by "joint consent of
the minister and the parishioners, ' ' and might be re-elected. Their

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

duties were minutely defined by a long series of Canons which,
codified and amended the administrative orders and Visitation
Articles issued during the previous half century.

The Visitation Articles of 1605, based on the Canons of 1604,
were strictly in accord with previous precedent, both in substance
and in form. In fact, these Articles were usually based upon the
ordinance or Canon in force at the moment and embodied in their
questions practically the whole of its requirements.1 The thirty-
five most important prepared for the Visitation of 1559 were taken
directly from the Queen's Injunctions for 1559, and of the remain
ing twenty-one, fourteen were concerned with the moral sins of the
laity, and four more with marriages and wills, so that all those
not taken from the Injunctions were, in the main, a repetition of
the old pre-reformation Canon law. In the articles of 1605, fifty-
seven out of the seventy-three were based directly upon the Canons
of 1604, and the remaining twelve were occupied with ordinary
questions regarding recusants and minor matters of discipline.
Until 1576, the enactments, to which most attention was paid at
the Visitations, were the Queen's Injunctions, the Acts of Suprem
acy and Uniformity, the Act "touching ministers of the Church,"
(13 Eliz. c. 12), and the Advertisements of 1564. Then, in 1576,
the gradual results of the experience of former years were embodied
in the Visitation Articles of that year, which, as a codification of
Church law, was the most important document issued between 1564
and 1604, and which exercised an influence on the institutional life
of the Church which it is difficult to overestimate. There were,
therefore, three stages of growth marked by three sets of Articles :
the stage of development, 1559-1576, when the precedent was
furnished by the Articles of 1559 and when considerable changes
and modifications were being constantly made ; the crystallisation of
the Elizabethan regulations into the Articles of 1576, from which
were bodily taken all the subsequent Elizabethan Visitation
Articles ; and the codification by Bancroft in 1605. Then opened a
period which continued without alteration for twenty years,
when, in the Visitation of Laud in 1635, some further developments
i along the same lines were introduced.

In each case, the development was carried on by the introduction

i The detailed evidence for these statements upon precedent will be
found in the Appendix.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

of clauses based upon parts of the Queen's Injunctions, or of the
Advertisements of 1564, or of the Canons of 1604, which had not
hitherto been explicitly represented. Of Parker's twenty-six
Articles of 1569, twelve were based on the Visitation Articles of
1559; eleven appeared for the first time as Visitation Articles to
enforce parts of the Injunctions which had been hitherto neglected ;
four were based on statutes, two on the Declaration of the Articles
of Religion of 1559, two upon the Prayer Book, and one upon the
Advertisements of 1564. Of the whole sixty-five, only fourteen
could be described as without precedent and they were not of great
importance. The Articles for the Episcopal Visitation of Bath
and Wells in 1583 and those for Salisbury in 1588 were taken
verbatim from those of 1576, upon which were also based Aylmer's
set for London, 1581-2, and the Articles of 1585 for Chichester.
Bancroft followed this same practice and of the fifteen Articles
of 1605 which were not derived from the Canons of 1604, half
(seven) came from the Visitation Articles of 1576. In 1616 Abbot
repeated Bancroft's Articles practically as they stood, though he
rearranged them into what he believed to be more logical order.
He also revived four articles of 1576 and introduced four more
based upon certain of the Canons of 1604 which Bancroft had not
considered worthy of inclusion.

When, however, we turn from matters of law and precedent to
the more crucial question, how much had been done, how much
was actually enforced of these regulations, we enter a field of
inquiry where the conditions are widely different. We exchange
relative certainty for vague statements and incomplete evidence.
Previous to Bancroft 's time the records of Visitations were so
badly kept, have been so mutilated by careless hands and rendered
so incomplete by the loss of volumes here and there, that the student
must confess that no amount of diligence and care can be rewarded
by more than tentative results. Nevertheless, the amount of avail
able material is so enormous that a man's life would hardly afford
time for a glance at it all. It is, therefore, impossible to speak on
administrative matters without some qualification of every state
ment and without realising that conditions differed very much in
various dioceses and that any general deductions for all England
are tentative.

Furthermore, our records are often entirely silent on some of the

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

most important questions which we can ask from an institutional
point of view. It is not always easy to determine who the official
was that conducted the Visitation of whose record the volume in
hand formed a part. Was it the Archdeacon, or the bishop's
Visitor, or the archbishop's Visitor? The character of the entries
gives no clue, for investigation shows that where we can determine
the status of the official, the entries are of the same type. The
wardens presented and after all there was only so much to present,
although they ordinarily gave the archbishop a longer bill of
comperta than they returned to the bishop or to the archdeacon. It
is even more important and far more difficult to tell by what
authority the official was proceeding. Was the archdeacon using his
own authority or had the bishop delegated to him his episcopal
powers, or entrusted him by special letters missive with unusual
functions for the time being? Did the official derive his warrant
from the archbishop's visitatorial powers, or from a special com
mission from the archbishop, from the diocesan High Commission,
from the general High Commission at London, or from a warrant
to the bishop or archbishop from the Privy Council? The arch
deacon himself might at any one moment have power from two or
three such sources and, indeed, he ordinarily had, besides his own
office, a seat on the diocesan High Commission and a place on the
bishop's visitatorial staff. It is, in fact, impossible to determine
which powers he exercised at any one moment, to see whether or
not he exceeded them, or even to tell with accuracy what his powers
were. Certainly all books marked ex officio are not records of the
High Commission, as the inexperienced have been only too ready to
conclude, for any ecclesiastical official might on occasion proceed
ex officio mero and try in that manner any case within his
cognisance. On the other hand, there is nothing to prove that such
a volume was not a part of the records of the diocesan High Com
mission. The matter cannot be demonstrated one way or the other
in our present ignorance of the exact duties of these local High
Commissions.

Again, these records, which have been designated for want of a
better name the Visitation Records, are not the original present
ments made by the churchwardens, but a selection from them (and
usually an abstract of the actual statement) prepared by one of
the Visitors for later proceedings in the Consistorial or Archi-

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

diaconal Court. What we have, therefore, is not what the church
wardens said, but only those items which some man, of whose
capacity, diligence, and probity we know nothing, thought worth
preserving. We can be sure that everything we have wras presented,
but we can be nearly as positive that what we have is not all that
was presented; and we should like to know what proportion the
abstract bears to the original lists, how many items were furnished
by the churchwardens, how many by parishioners, and how many
by the vicar himself. There is good reason to believe that, in most
cases, on account of the general inability of the wardens to read
or write, the list was delivered viva voce to the official, who wrote
down on the spot what he thought pertinent to the object which
the bishop or archdeacon had most in mind at that particular time.
In many cases, as in the Bishop's visitation of Peterborough in 1591,
we find only omnia bene for parish after parish, though occasional
entries under those very words make it certain that the wardens
presented a list of complaints and perhaps a long one but that the
official thought in sum and substance it contained nothing worth
proceeding with. Sometimes by this method the very volume,
which we meant to compare with some other of different date, has
been so reduced that it is impossible to compile good statistics from
it. In other cases, where the book is not missing, it has not been
arranged under deaneries and therefore can not be used, for there
is no one year in which the records forthcoming seem to be complete
for the whole diocese.

Another difficulty to be contended with is the lack of information
on the points which we particularly desire to investigate and the
superabundance of detail about incontinency, adultery, slander,
scolding, drunkenness, brawling in church, working on Sunday,
and defiling the churchyard, which easily forms two-thirds of the
total entries preserved to us. All the statements, furthermore, are
very brief and seldom give us any chance of tracing the further
history of the case. It thus becomes evident that our information
is, upon the points of most importance, not only scanty, brief, and
detached, but also very indirect, and hence easily misinterpreted
and accorded either more or less than its actual significance. Only
by the patient study of scores of cases can a sufficiently detailed
understanding be acquired to appraise the evidence on any point
at its true value, and, even then, the most expert and conscientious

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

toiler must always fear that he has overrated some facts or omitted
others of importance. He cannot even rest assured that the state
ments, or lack of statements, underneath each entry of the pro
ceedings taken in it by the courts, were all that was done, for it is
quite possible that the offender was proceeded against before the
local High Commission or before the general High Commission at
London, or was attended to by personal letter or messenger from
the bishop. Of course, the fact that this would happen only in the
important and serious cases does not deprive it of its significance,
for it is just those cases of disobedient and nonconformable
ministers and churchwardens in which we are most interested.
Nevertheless, it seems improbable that such a practice could have
been extensive for it was often said that many of the more
important failings had already been presented many times without
any amendment. This seems to explain adequately that puzzling
blank in the records and makes it reasonably certain that, in most
cases, previous to Bancroft's archiepiscopate, nothing had been
done by any authority on the facts presented.

In all these hundreds and hundreds of volumes little appears to
answer those questions we would most willingly ask. There is
nothing to tell us exactly what the archdeacon thought his powers
were, to inform us in what relation he stood to the bishop's com
missary, what things he did himself and what he always left to
the bishop, and whether the results of the bishop 's and archbishop 's
visitations were proceeded with — in addition to the penalties
imposed by the archbishop's own visitors — in the consistory court
or in the archidiaconal court. Nor do we find ourselves more
enlightened upon the relations of the archdeacon to the bishop, to
the archbishop, to the local High Commission and to the general
High Commission at London. It is easy to say that he was of
course outranked and overruled, but were his decisions ordinarily
overruled on appeal, did the High Commission, local or general,
interfere with him or assist him when he did not ask for it or
did they wait until he had exhausted his powers and called upon
them as a last resource ? On the other hand, did the lower ecclesias
tical officials regularly have any direct relations with the greater
luminaries of the ecclesiastical world or were they always
approached through the bishops? Letters we have in some abun
dance, preserved by Strype, by Fuller, and in the chief manuscript

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

repositories, but they relate almost invariably to exceptional cases
and are not concerned with that regular course of ecclesiastical
routine which we should like to investigate. In the present writer's
mind, however, there is a growing conviction that there was no
efficient and regular routine administration, that all the institu
tional life of the Church there was, at least before Bancroft 's archi-
episcopate and very probably (though not so certainly) during it
and after it, was sustained by unusual and extraordinary practices
outside the normal ecclesiastical machinery. Things were accom
plished by personal letter or order or interview, without the use of
any ecclesiastical process and wrere made effective, not by fears of
excommunication or of penance, but by the wholesome threat of the
High Commission, of the Star Chamber and of the Privy Council,
which, however, were actually called into requisition only in a few
instances because the threat was usually sufficient. As for expect
ing to find coercive authority inherent somewhere in the old admin
istrative system, that seemed to be an idle dream for, apparently,
there was none. Bishop after bishop reiterated the strain with
more or less plaintive variations, that they had no power.

This leads to the interesting question of how far a churchwarden
could be intimidated into giving information he would have pre
ferred to withhold. We do not know but it seems very unlikely
that any were ever frightened into presenting, for, besides the
probable lack of coercive authority, they refused in many cases to
appear at the Visitation at all1 and in numerous instances their
parishioners presented them for failing to tell of facts well known
in the town. Perhaps they in turn informed the higher officials
of facts which the townspeople would have preferred to have left
untold but, inasmuch as they were nominally at least chosen by
the parish, they probably agreed with the opinions of the majority
of the villagers. This verdict the Visitation Articles, on the whole
sustain very well. What the capacity of the majority of wardens
was, whether they could read and write or were, as a class, ignorant
and incompetent, is not definitely ascertainable, though what
evidence there is points strongly to the latter alternative. Their
original presentments, if we had them, would doubtless reveal much
and we should very likely find, where they were delivered in writing

1 It cost them a journey, several days' time, and at least four pence
in fees, a considerable sum in 1605.

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which seems to have been seldom, that the vicar had the penning
of the paper.1 We can only guess at the relations of the wardens
and the vicar, of the wardens and the parishioners and, although
in regard to the relations between the vicar and the parishioners
we have pretty positive evidence that they seldom sympathised with
his liturgical irregularities, we are still totally in the dark as to the
ordinary authority and influence he exercised. No doubt it varied
widely according to the size of the parish, the character of the vicar
and of his people, and the section of England in which they lived.
Probably, as a man superior in education and ability to the farmers
and peasants of his congregation, he swayed the politics of the
village and was, in his turn, to no inconsiderable extent, dominated
and influenced by the gentry of the neighbourhood and particularly
by his own patron.

The answers to these problems, if they are ever found, will appear
only when the great mass of manuscript materials now in the
episcopal registries has been carefully sorted and tabulated, studied
by specialists and the results placed before students in detailed
monographs. But, with these general and sweeping qualifications,
the few tentative results here set forth seem, as far as they go, to
be clear and sufficiently well established.

To give a more human and a more definite cast to these complex
and elusive problems of administration,2 it seems best to give the
history for some years of a typical parish as told by the Visitation
books and, for this purpose, no parish seems better adapted than
that of Holy Trinity in the town of Ely. The records are complete,
well kept, and unusually full for the date at which they were made
and the number of people concerned. Neither Puritanism nor
Catholicism tainted the parish; it was not so isolated that the
officials could be exonerated for some lack of diligence in their over
sight of it, but, being at Ely under the very eyes of the bishop and
the archdeacon, we should expect here, if anywhere in the Church,

iWe have some few sheets of the into castles and creates giant oaks
original comperta scattered among the out of the familiar apple tree.
Consistory Court Records at Ely and There is nothing more difficult to re-
Norwich They are usually signed by tain, while studying an institution
the vicar through the medium of a series of

2 We have been so much occupied statements which are professedly ex-

with the exceptional, and the darker ceptions to the rule, than a sense of

side that we tend to view the ec- proportion and an ability to divine

clesiastical landscape through a cloud beneath the crust of excrescences the

of misconceptions which distorts houses true state of affairs.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

to find conformity, vigour and energy of institutional life. Their
problems were precisely those of the Church in general and, to one
who has read many hundreds of pages in Visitation books, the
story seems like an epitome of the record of all England.

By the aid of the accompanying tables, we can see how much be-

Parish of Holy Trinity, Ely

1582

1584

1601

1603

1604

1606-7

Number of cases presented ....
Incontinency
Refusal to attend church

8
5

13
3

125

27
4

29
15

48
21
5

142
35

Refusal to take communion ....

Sabbath Breaking

—

Drunkards

Scolds

Standing excommunicate

Not paying the clerk's wages . .

—

Debt

Refusal to pay for repairs of the

church

Annoying the churchyard
Church decayed

—

Fled from punishment

yond any of the previous high water marks of administrative vig
our, the tide of Bancroft's influence surged. Under Grindal in
1582 only eight entries were registered on the book, but under Whit-

Total Cases Presented in Various Parishes
of Ely Archdeaconry in Various Years

Chat-
teres

Sutton

March

Little-
port

Mophall

Went-
worth

1601
April, 1603

18
1

June, 1603

no
bill

omnia
bene

Aug.-Sept, 1603 . .

—

no
bill

ditto

December, 1603 . . .

—

omnia
bene

ditto

March, 1604
June, 1604

22
25

—

ditto

1605-6

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gift, two years later, that figure was doubled. In 1601 the total
entries were one hundred and twenty-five which fell in 1603 to
twenty-nine, rose under Bancroft's stimulus to forty-eight, and
in 1606, at the first archidiaconal Visitation after the archiepiscopal
Visitation of 1605, soared to one hundred and forty-two. Surely
from eight to one hundred and forty-two is a great rise and the in
crease from one hundred and twenty-five is considerable. In other
parishes, where the work of the officials had not been previously as
good, the increase in Bancroft's time over all preceding dates in
gross number of presentments was from twenty to sixty per
cent.

As has already been hinted, the persons presented, previous to
the year 1604, were usually not proceeded against at all and, where
anything was done, a simple citation and hearing, followed in rare
instances by penance or excommunication, was all that resulted.
Bancroft, however, was resolved not only to have offenders pre
sented, but to have them punished as severely as the law would
allow. Where nothing had been done before, it became not unusual
to find, under the record of the presentment, notes of from two to
eight separate processes undertaken against the culprit. Robert
Harrison had committed several moral crimes and, for absolution
and various other fees, owed in 1606, 23s 8d. On June 19, 1606,
they cited him before the court to pay it and, when he did not
appear, continued to issue citations on 14 August, 1606, 16 Decem
ber, 1606, 2 April, 1607, 28 June, 1607, 18 August, 1607, 1 December,
1607, 15 March, 1607-8. Anthony Hynmore's case is precisely
similar. Indeed, far from being isolated and unusual instances,
the Visitation book of 1606 records two cases in which eight or
more writs were issued; three in which from six to eight were sent
out and twenty in which from four to six were used and, in most
of the remainder, two at the least ; that is to say, in twenty per cent,
of all the cases noted in that parish in 1606, from four to six writs
were issued to follow up the disobedient culprit. There was to be
no more immunity from punishment if the Archbishop could help
it and, if disobedience and indifference to the ecclesiastical cen
sures and writs could be overcome by reiteration and persistence,
Bancroft intended to know it. It cannot be too often repeated that
this vigorous enforcement followed a period of nearly half a cen
tury, during which little, if anything, had been done. While the

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

number of presentments increased, in all England, on an average
about ten per cent, above the highest previous number, the gain,
in cases proceeded with, was, at a conservative estimate, seventy-
five per cent, greater than ever before.

Nor was the Archbishop satisfied with an energetic prosecution
of the men and women brought to the ecclesiastical bar. All the
indictments within the past five years were ransacked and in the
more serious cases proceedings were at once instituted. In 1601 the
wife of William Terrell had been presented as a woman of
notorious evil life, and on February 17, 1601, a citation had issued
to her, and on May 19, 1601, some further step had been taken, but
there the matter rested until August, 1604, when a new citation was
sent to her.1 This having been ineffectual, another was served
December 14 and on March 14, 1604-5, she was excommunicated;
on June 16 1605 was denounced as excommunicate. Robert Banck
and Agnes Banck were separately proceeded against in the same
way on approximately these same dates for a crime committed in
1600. The minister of the parish of Holy Trinity had been absent
during a part of the year 1603 for some unexplained reason, and
John Baker supplied the pulpit in his absence to the discontent of
the parishioners, who presented him in that very year "for yt
he did not upon the Sabaothe and holiidayse weare his Surplice,
neither marrye with the ring in marriage, neither signe with the
signe of the Crosse in baptizing of children." The officials cited
him to appear on August 16, 1601 but apparently did nothing
further in the case. Then, on July 10, 1604, a new citation issued
and when the apparitor, who was sent to serve it on Baker, declared
the man could not be found, a viis et modiis was decreed. On
August 29, 1604 a new decree was finally served upon Baker, who
excused himself on baseless pretexts to the apparitor whenever he
appeared. He was therefore pronounced contumacious and
forbidden the church; on December 13 the vicar denounced
him and the court suspended him from his functions as a
minister.

Nor were these instances without parallel. In 1604-5, the officials
took action, in this single parish of Holy Trinity, in nineteen cases
presented in 1601, in seven presented in 1603, and in twenty, out
of a total of forty-eight, presented early in 1604. In the parish of

1 These cases are still from the records of the parish of Holy Trinity, Ely.

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March, in this same diocese, twenty per cent, of the cases presented
in 1601 were acted upon in 1604-5.

This new vigour of administration showed itself in every subject
which could be presented at a visitation. All cases were proceeded
with irrespective of subject: the incontinent maid, the shrewish
wife, the tippler, the swearer, all found that the day of immunity,
which they had shared with the nonconformable ministers and the
careless churchwardens, had passed. Presentments for moral
offences of the laity, incontinence, adultery and the like had always
been numerous and continued to be, not only because the parties
were articled against separately, so that one instance was recorded
on the books as two cases, but because such offences were common.
The next categories, in point of number, were the breaking of the
sabbath, the failure to attend church and absence from the com
munion. But a great part of the records were always filled with
complaints against scolds, drunkards, people who "annoyed the
Church yard with ashes " x or " with a muckhill and hogges ; ' '
against this man ' ' for beating of his wife and livinge disorderly to
the great offence of his neighbors and by scoldinge and brawlinge ; ' '
against that man ' ' for disquieting the minister in the administering
of the communion with scolding and brawling;" or because he
"thrust the wyef of Miles Cawlder out of her owne seate in the
sermon tyme. ' ' Then, there were those who told the minister * ' that
he lyed, and that he had noe more Creditt then his Dogge ; ' ' those
who informed the churchwarden with a sixteenth century direct
ness, that "he was as fit to be an officer as to be hoggard of the
town;" and those who shouted out, when excommunicated for
crime, that "knaves put me in and knaves shall put me oute."
When the warden went to exhort people to attend church he met
some who declared flatly that they would never come to church
again;2 others who said that they would come when they pleased
or when they were good and ready ;3 and still another, with a frank
and amiable character, who said that he found it irksome to attend

1 These examples are still from the corny, 1605) declared "that he would
parish of Holy Trinity, Ely. resort to his parishe Churche but

2 One Ayres was indicted from Ely, when he thought good. ' ' Nicholas
Holy Trinity, in 1601 "for refusinge Tomas of Wisbeach (Wisbeach arch-
to come to his parishe Church and deaconry, 1601) told the warden that
beinge thereunto advised by the ' ' he wold come to Church but once in
Churchwardens he answereth that he three weekes in despite of him or any
will never come there again. ' ' other. ' '

8 A man at Sutton (Ely archdea-

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

divine service more than once a month. As far as can be ascer
tained, there were no recusants at Ely and absence from church
was occasioned by no more recondite or profound reasons than
will explain the emptiness of many churches at the present day.
The town of Ely was also well provided with those who, refusing
to observe the sanctity of the sabbath and of holydays, proceeded
with their carting, or mowing, hunting or fishing with entire
indifference to the monitions of churchwardens and archdeacons.
About twenty per cent, of the presentments at Holy Trinity were
regularly concerned with such matters and in the neighbouring
parish of Littleport, out of fifty-one presentments made in 1606,
thirty concerned sabbath breaking.1

With the advent of Bancroft we also find a change in the class of
cases presented. In 1606 appear at Ely presentments that tell of
the decayed state of the church building, the tumble-down condi
tion of the churchyard fence, the lack of a proper font for baptism,
and of a "decent" cup for use at the communion table.2 The
church officials first begin to be noticed in the Visitations, as a
regular practice, for previously the only records we possess con
tained much against the laity and very little, if anything, against
the practices and ideas of the clergy and officials, except in scat
tered and unusual instances and except in the strongly Puritan
districts where the nonconformity of minister and wardens was
easily apparent. This new note is very clear and significant of the
new policy which had taken its seat at Lambeth.

This same change, which appears in so striking a manner in
the records of the parish of Holy Trinity at Ely, was equally
clear, though in varying degrees and with many local differences,
over England as a whole. The Visitation records, taken by the
archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops during the six years of
Bancroft's archiepiscopate, are equal, in number of pages and
actual feet of room required to store them, to all those which had
accumulated in the previous fifty years and if, in some dioceses,

1 The idea of punishing people for archdeaconry, 1596; Calcewaithe, Lin-
a breach of the sabbath was there- coin archdeaconry, 1601 ; Emmeth,
fore no invention of the Puritans. Wisbeach archdeaconry, Ely, 1603 ;

2 These complaints were by no Elme, Wisbeach archdeaconry, 1605 ;
means new. A representative set of Beccles, archdeaconry of Suffolk,
entries is: Cumberton, Ely archdea- 1606; Barnham, archdeaconry of Sud-
conry, 1578; Lincoln archdeaconry, bury, 1611.

Io94 passim; Westwrathing, Ely

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Subjects Presented at Various Archdeaconries

Lin-

coin

Lin
coln

Ely

Nor
folk

Suf
folk

Sud-
bury

1589

1600

1596

1597

1606

1611

No. Parishes
Considered

155

180

171

Incontinency
Refusal to attend church
Refusal to take commu
nion

52
4

70
31

20
5

150

165

191
75

105

171

132

Sabbath breaking . .

Administrations
Refusing to pay church
rates
Standing excommunicate
Scolds

4
1

27
1
7

15
28
4

9
52

72
3

6
14

Brawling
Drunkards

9
4

2
1

12
11

4
19

1
25

Churches decayed
Recusants

22
34

Pluralities . . . .

Schoolmasters not li
censed
No table of degrees of
marriage

—

2
4

7
5

—

No tablet of Ten Com
mandments
Working on holydays . .
Not paying clerk's wages
Refusal to pay for re
pairs in church
Wardens' accounts not
made

—

6
1

5
5

4
4

—

Vicar non-resident ....
Refusal to be -catechised
Parson does not cate
chise
Registry has no lock . . .

—

the proportion was somewhat less than this, in others it was greater.
Thus, in a number of parishes in the diocese of Ely, we find that at
a conservative estimate, the increase in number of presentments
was twenty per cent. ; in the city of Norwich it was sixty ; in the
archdeaconry of Norwich, fourteen. The increase is proportionally
greater in individual dioceses than it was over the whole of Eng
land and greater in single parishes than in whole dioceses, for of
course much still depended on the diligence of local officials. There

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

had been a goodly number of careful and diligent men before Ban
croft .'s day, or the Church would never have been administered at
all and he would have had no one capable of carrying out his orders.
Perhaps a ten per cent, increase over the whole of England would
approximate the truth and would be sufficiently striking when we
realise that this great gain in efficiency was accomplished by the
influence of one man almost instantaneously. Probably, however,
the proportion of cases proceeded with under Bancroft as compared
with the number followed up by his predecessors, should be put as
high as sixty or seventy-five per cent., while the promptness,
rapidity, and severity of his procedure bore no comparison what
ever to the feeble, halting efforts of preceding administrators.

An inspection of the tables adjoined reveals many points of
interest. The presentments for incontinency, for refusing to attend
church, for refusing to take the communion, for the nonconformity
of the minister and for standing excommunicate, show great
increase over the whole of the fields inspected. Recusants rose enor
mously, from practically nothing at all, to what was probably in
Protestant shires a reasonably full list of all those who openly
professed allegiance to the Pope. Likewise those who refused to
pay for the repair of the church were adequately enumerated,
denoting the greater emphasis now laid upon undoing the ravages
made by half a century of neglect and pillage. The lack of monthly
sermons, which had been considerable in Norfolk and Suffolk, seems
to have been remedied in some degree before the year 1606. Where,
in Norwich Archdeaconry, out of fifty-one parishes eighteen iiad
no monthly sermons in 1597, all but eight had been supplied by 1606,
while in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, out of one hundred and fifty-
five parishes in 1606, only eighteen were deficient and, in the Arch
deaconry of Sudbury, out of one hundred and eighty parishes,
only five lacked their monthly sermon.

We also begin to read in the Visitation Records that the missing
articles for the church have been provided or that the chancel has
been repaired — a new and strange entry, for. prior to 1604, we find
scores of cases where the wardens declared that the matter had
been many times presented and yet no remedy could be had. Where
an amendment had not been made, excuses were forthcoming. The
wardens of Tyd, (Wisbeach Archdeaconry, 1605) explained that
the seats in their church were not yet fixed "because noe levye cane

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Subjects Presented — Archdeaconry and City of Norwich

Archdeaconry

City

1597

1606

1597

1606

Number parishes considered

Incontinency
Refusal to come to church

22
22
11
26
13
9
10
6
6
4

65
9
23

1
4
10

8
2
7
1
6
1

2
9

18
11
18
4

10
5
17

7
17

25
71

7
4

g
4
1

2
10

13
6

Refusal to take communion ....
Pluralists . . .

Practicing physic without license
Schoolmaster not licensed
Detaining church money or rates
Sabbath breaking

Need box for the poor fund ....
Need chest for the vestry
Need a table of the degrees in
marriage

Standing excommunicate

Recusants
Drunkards
Brawlim"

Scolds . .

Administrations and probate ....
Working on holy days
Church wardens ordered to pro
duce their accounts
Refusal to pay for church repairs
Annoying the churchyard
Churchyard not fenced
Servants not sent to be cate
chised .

Refusal to pay clerk's wages ....
Church decayed

No monthly sermons
Ministers presented for some
offence. .

be gotten or made for that purpose/' while from Abington Magna
(Wisbeach Archdeaconry, 1608) came the statement that they had
bought all the books except the homilies, which they could not
purchase anywhere ; this proving to be the case, they were freed
from all blame. The good effect of the new regime appeared on
every side. The wardens of Brandeston (Archdeaconry of Suffolk,
1606,) reported that their vicar, John Lowes, (a man whom the
previous Visitations had shown to be inclined towards Puritanism)
"hath not allwayes used the prescripte forme of common prayer
prescribed on the boke, but for the most parte since the publishing^
of the Cannons he hath obserued the same." They also said that

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

' ' there haue been sentences of Scripture placed in the said church. ' '
The vicar of Bures (Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1606) certified that
"the cushion and cloth were provided for the pulpit." The
wardens from Barklowe (Wisbeach Archdeaconry, 1608,) said
"that the Carpett for the Communion table is olde and torne and
that they are purposed out of hand to provide a newe one." For
years the church at Madingley (Archdeaconry of Ely) had been in
bad condition and very little notice had been taken of it, to the
great discontent of some in the parish, but now at last, in 1608, the
wardens replied to the archdeacon's inquiries, that the church was
' ' out of repaire but being mended. ' ' *

Best of all, the nonconformable ministers were removing the
technical charges against them for, where William Burton had been
presented in 1608 for preaching without a license, an entry of a
few months later informs us that "he is now licensed." Anthony
Watson of Watford, Hertfordshire, who was presented by his
congregation for not wearing the surplice and clerical dress and
was censured accordingly by the Bishop, actually conformed and
"provided his habit according to the Canon."

Even if what seems to be a symptom of increased energy, in the
clergy itself, was only the result of greater diligence in the church
official who kept the records, that is in itself, from an administrative
point of view, a fact of the very first importance. Until the officers
of an institution respect it, enforce its laws strictly, observe its
rules and forms to the letter, it is idle to expect any one else to
regard it as powerful or worthy of obedience.

The new regime had several perfectly well defined objects. First,
the forms were to be made a reality ; there should be no more show
of presenting men without giving any information and those in
formed against were to feel the weight of the ecclesiastical law. If
a layman offended, he must suffer, but his clerical neighbour should
no longer be passed over in silence. Secondly, all the former
presentments of serious offences, which had not yet been punished
and which were not committed too long a time before, were to be
dealt with as if they were new presentments. The law was to be

i The wardens of Bozeatt (Arch- Book of Homilies." The vicar of

deaconry of Bothwell and Higham, Seagrave (same reference) reported

Peterborough, 1605) reported that the "that they have provided the booke

' ' Kinges Armes is nowe a setting up of comon praier, the booke of Oan-

and the workman is to white the nons, and the Carpet for the Commu-

Church, also we are provided of the nion table."

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

enforced to the best of the archbishop 's ability. The Visitation would
still result chiefly in the presentation of laj^men for minor offences,
for the vicar and the wardens would not normally bring to light
their own delinquencies; but a new day had dawned: henceforth,
no one was to be exempt, the authority of the Church must be
maintained. But there were certain topics upon which especial
stress was to be laid. For the six years of Bancroft's archiepisco-
pacy, the great question, reiterated again and again, was, is your
church decayed and whose duty is it to put it in repair? If the
obligation rested upon the parish, as it often did, the wardens were
directed to assess rates and the number of cases where men refused
to pay them, evinces how widespread was the attempt to collect
them.1

To Bancroft, no church could possess institutional respectability
whose service was not said in a clean, sound building with the
minimum vestments and altar ornaments in a reasonable state of
order and decency. If there really was no surplice or cloth for
the communion table, no person could be blamed for not using
it ; if there was no copy of the Homilies nor of the Canons, the vicar
could not be severely censured for not reading them or for not
obeying their precepts. The churches must provide the few articles
which lent dignity and impressiveness to the service. The clergy
must wear that dress which clearly distinguished them from the
laity, for if the Church, as a visible institution endowed with the
tradition of a great past, was to bulk large before the eyes of
Englishmen, its ministers and officers must appear in public in a
garb which at once proclaimed their station in life, and pointed
significantly to the gulf which separated them from the laity. Ban
croft was alive to the fact that the people were still medievalists,
who looked at externals and sought through them to connect them
selves with the great and glorious. To represent the Church to the
masses as their imaginations pictured it to be. not only must the
service be dignified and dramatic but the clergy, as the representa
tives of a great institution and of the traditions of Christian

i At Thetford, in the Archdeaconry " beautifying the Church." _Most of

of Ely, 1606, 12 men refused to pay the amounts were small which were

for the repair of the church: at thus refused — 6d. or 9d. — but some

Witcham in the same archdeaconry were quite considerable, 34s., lOd. ;

and year, 11 refused; at Leverington 6s., 6d. ; 5s., 4d. ; 4s., 4d. ; 18d. Some

in the Archdeaconry of Wisbeach, in rates were as low as 2d.
]60o, 14 men refused to pay for

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

antiquity, must to the naked eye be distinguishable from ordinary
men.

Among all these plans, however, the Archbishop never forgot the
matter of ecclesiastical incomes. The Visitations show unceasing
effort to learn whether a terrier (or survey) of the lands of the
glebe had been made ; whether the woods were well preserved ; and
whether any long leases of church lands were outstanding. In the
courts and elsewhere no small part of the confusion over incomes
arose from the lack of definite records of the situation at any date,
whose absence, of course, made it difficult to decide what the custom
was a decade previous and led to very annoying difficulties for
ecclesiastical litigants. The parish records of every sort must be
carefully kept ; the register of births and marriages ; the terrier of
lands; the lists of leases; the statement of the tithes and of the
terms of any commutation with the date of its making. With an
eye gazing far into the future, Bancroft saw that only in this way
could the Church be saved from the recurrence of the situation with
which he himself was struggling.

For years, all sorts of tales of the venality of church officials
had been bandied about in Puritan tracts, petitions to Parliament1
and the scurrilous broadsheets of the day, until the very reiteration
began to carry conviction. We find similar statements in the Visita
tion Records which are more trustworthy, and, though less extreme
are still bad enough. A general bill of complaints, drawn perhaps
by a Puritan, said that the whole aim of ecclesiastical administra
tion was not to reform the disorders but to collect fees. "If any
such offence be then detected or defaults in churches presented,
the said inferior officers do then most commonly grant to the
offenders (being first cited before them) a day to amend it. At
which time, they grant another day : and so from day to day, do so
defer and delay the time by giving days of respite (only for their
own gain) that in the end the offender clean escapeth unpunished
and the default never amended. For the giving of which days of
respite, they take at every time of the offender for every day so
given, 6d. at the least. ' ' 2 Mr. Mosgrave of Elme, in the Arch-

1 A choice collection will be found ulous.

in the Admonition to Parliament, the 2'' Abuses greatly grevious to the

Certain Articles, and the Marprelate Queenes Majesties siibjectes. (1597-

Tracts. They are hoAvever so extreme (?) or 1601 (?).) Strype, Whitgift?

that even contemporaries were incred- III, 376.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

deaconry of Wisbeach, 1605, was presented for "sayeing that it
were but a folly to present Mr. Gyles the vicar there for that he
was at a fee with the Courte for 40s. a yeare and that so the comon
fame was and is." "George Dayvs and George Butler (of the
parish of Coton, Diocese of Peterborough, 1605) they both did say
it is a smale matter to come into the bawdy courte (archdeacon's
court) for they did say, for 17 potts of ale or beare they would
come out of it when they listed. Further these parties did say unto
Thomas Leftchild, that, if so be he must needes come into the
courts, it were his best course to agree with the Judge of the Courte
and the rest of the officers for shoes or shoe leather and diuers other
sundry unreverent speeches in disgrace of the court. ' ' * From
Norfolk comes a tale on the other side. Milo Whaill, an apparitor,
* ' cited a pore woman to the Commissioners courte, beinge Adminis
tratrix of her husbandes goodes, Thomas Durrant, to bringe in an
accompte and she appereinge, he afterwards brought as he said an
excom : and compelled her to giue him 18d., parte whereof she paide
(her poverty beinge so greate she could not paye all.) " Certainly
Mr. Giles, who was probably a Puritan, was often presented for
nonconformity and was never punished until Bancroft's day, but
all the men like Whaill whom the officials could find, were severely
handled and Bancroft himself was particularly harsh with such
culprits. Nevertheless, so much smoke must have risen from some
fire and doubtless the Archbishop's wrathful anathemas did not
prevent the underlings of the ecclesiastical courts from carrying
on a great deal of disreputable business under his very nose. So
far as orders, letters, and canons would go, he did his utmost to
stop it,3 but the best laws in the world, the firmest and best planned
institutional fabric, cannot prevent the incompetence, greed, and
negligence of its officials from working mischief.

In the method of Visitation Bancroft made an innovation of
great significance. Previously, the Archbishop's Visitors had been
his own officials, with certain divines and civil lawyers sent from

1 This comes from a miscellaneous tides of 1576, Nos. 62, 63, 64 ; and
volume among the Consistory Court Bancroft's Articles of 1605, No. 39.
books. Also Bancroft's Letter to the Bishops

2 Marsham, Norfolk Archdeaconry, on non-residence of April 30, 1605,
1606. (Wilkins, Concilia. IV, 414) and on

s His were by no means the first: pluralities, July 1610, (Cardwell 'a
See Parker's Visitation Articles, of Annals, IT, 158.) Canons of 1604.
1569, no. 25, 26, 27; Grindal's Ar- cxix-cxxxvin.

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

London, men who were not acquainted with the country nor with
its clergy and who were therefore not qualified to conduct their
search rapidly and so to the best advantage. They did not know
what to look for nor where to find the worst nonconformity, though,

of course, if the only object of the Visitation were still, as it had been
in the Middle Ages, to inspect the work of the local officials, it was
necessary that they should not be allowed, by their own presence
on the bench, to intimidate men from presenting them and thus to
conceal their own faults. To Bancroft's mind, however, the chief
object of the Visitation, next to revealing the condition of the
clergy, was the spreading of information of what the law was and
the manner in which the authorities at Lambeth wished the admin
istration conducted. He wished to investigate rather the lapses
from grace in the parishes than the faults of the diocesan officials
themselves. Previously, when the Archbishop's Visitors had
departed, the local episcopal officers knew no more about the state
of their diocese than they had before and were equally ignorant
of the exact reading given the law by the archiepiscopal staff. Now,
by combining the bishop, his vicar-general, commissary, and chief

1 clergy with several officers from London, Bancroft brought local
knowledge into contact with metropolitan experience and methods,
helped his own men to find quickly the difficulties, gave to the
bishop and his officers a view of the condition of their diocese as
seen through the archbishop's eyes and, best of all, gave the local
officers by this close association with their colleagues from London,
a knowledge of new methods to be pursued and a comprehension
of the personality of the men with whom they were continually
dealing by letter and messenger. Through this means, he brought

.the local and central administration into close contact, to their

j mutual profit, and exorcised that hostility and suspicion which had
too often prevailed among the ecclesiastical hierarchy.1 Let us all
stand together and help each other in our common endeavour for
the great purpose of uplifting the Church of Christ in this realm
of England, was Bancroft's motto.

He also introduced a new idea of the value of administrative
experience, insisting that only competent men should be advanced
to positions of trust and that men should be kept long enough in

1 His register affords abundant croft's letter to Dr. James, the Vis-
proof of this. Wilkins has printed, itor of the Diocese of Bath and Wells,
in his Concilia, IV. 414, 415, Ban- dated May 28, 1605.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

office to learn the duties of the place.1 When he assumed the
bishopric of London he had filled his staff, so far as he could
without damaging its efficiency by depriving it of that local knowl
edge which can only be gained by long acquaintance with a given
territory, from the men whom he had trained in the High Com
mission, and when he removed to Canterbury, he took them with
him, partly because of their intelligence, but more because they
understood his methods and policy. Sir Edward Stanhope, Sir
Daniel Dun, Sir John Bennett, John Cowell, Dr. Edward James,
all of them men of great ability, high intelligence, and attainments
recognised to such an extent that their writings on civil and eccle
siastical law were held authoritative by European experts, formed
the backbone of his administration and to their energy and worth
no small part of his success was due. The efficient administration
of a great institution depends often as much upon the capacity of
subordinates as upon the organising ability of a great brain at its
head. Bancroft was not only a leader but a great judge of human
nature. Vaughan and Ravis, who succeeded him in the See of
London, were not men of theological learning or of any particular
reputation, but they had administrative ability coupled with much
tact and performed their difficult functions, at a most trying epoch,
to the admiration even of the Puritans.2

Some men of value he sent into the country where they were
sorely needed: Dr. James was sent to the diocese of Bath and
Wells as the Bishop's chancellor, for Mountagu, the Bishop of that
See who was a favourite of the King, spent most of his time at
Court, and, although a clever writer and an entertaining companion,
was a man of small ability. This was another innovation upon the
Elizabethan idea, that any man of ordinary intelligence and known
political loyalty was qualified to hold most ecclesiastical positions.
Although Whitgift and Aylmer had not acted on such an idea, it
was none the less very wide spread. The greater influence which
Bancroft was able to exercise in the appointment of officials and

i When he was Chancellor of Oxford else. S. P. Dom. Jac. I, 47. No. 19.

University, he reappointed his Vice July 8, 1609. Bancroft to the Vice

Chancellor because he said he had ob- Chancellor, and Doctors, Proctors,

served at Cambridge that the constant and Masters of the Convocation

rotation of officers gave them a Vice House, Oxford.

Chancellor who was never efficient 2 Chamberlain to Winwood, Feb-

because, as soon as he had familiar- ruary 26, 1604-5. Winwood 's Memo-

ised himself with the duties of his rials, II, 49.
post, he was replaced by some one

ADMINISTRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION

even bishops,1 was a factor which must not be neglected if we are
to understand this sudden burst of administrative energy and skill.
For years, men had been acquiring in obscurity, as had Bancroft
himself, administrative knowledge of value, and the years 1604 and
1605 were only the fruitage of the previous decades. Yet it had
needed the man with the eye to see, the head to plan, and the hand
to execute, to bring forth these men from isolation and to put them
into connection with the work which they were fitted to accomplish.
Bancroft's success with the able is by no means as remarkable as
his capacity for dragging work out of the unfit whom he found in
office and whom he could not displace, for most of this great record
of the years 1604 and 1605 was made by the very men who had
been so careless and negligent in the preceding years. Many men
who preached in 1606 had not preached regularly before; many
succeeded in procuring licenses who had not previously been quali
fied; churches were repaired; books and ornaments were procured
for the service by the very men who had neglected for so many
years to provide them.

i Certain ambassadorial statements Whitgift had exercised considerable
to the contrary notwithstanding. influence in this particular also.

BOOK THIRD

VINDICATION OF RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER I

LEGAL OBSTACLES TO THE AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

The obstinate and refractory clergy had been deprived and the
rest reduced to better order and conformity : the Visitation of 1605
and the general endeavors of the Archbishop, coupled to his efforts
while Bishop of London, had infused into the Church an institution
al vigour and a consciousness of corporate strength which were in
valuable in the struggles of the coming years. Nevertheless, the
much-needed reform of the Church, which Bancroft had long had
in mind, was far from consummated because nothing effectual had
as yet been accomplished towards the augumentation of ecclesiasti
cal incomes, upon which, as has already been shown, depended the
efficiency, character, and learning of the clergy. His attempts in
the year 1604, the one in the secret conferences between the bishops
and the Privy Council and the other in Parliament, had both
failed to produce fruit and it was unlikely that similar proposals
to succeeding Parliaments would be better received. The Arch
bishop was forced to look elsewhere. Much was accomplished by the
union of small benefices which adjoined each other, as many did in
the towns and cities and not infrequently in the country ; and more
yet by the exchange of benefices held in plurality by clergymen re
siding in different dioceses, so that each might secure two or more so
near together that he could serve both on the same or alternate Sun
days. The extent to which this practice was carried on is evinced
by the large number of resignations and cessions of benefices re
corded among the lists of institutions in the various diocesan regis
tries. Often it is possible to trace the benefices which were thus
exchanged in the same diocese. From a fifth to a fourth of all the
institutions in England, during Bancroft's time, were probably
made for this purpose. To have reduced the scandal and abuse
consequent upon pluralities was, in truth, an achievement of no
small magnitude, but it did not alleviate the real suffering and
could not permanently cure the difficulty at all, for it did not in

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

the least remedy the inadequacy of ecclesiastical incomes. It mere
ly exchanged one benefice for another and did not even decrease the
number of pluralists. l

Yet there could be no question that clerical incomes must be in-
Acreased if any efficiency of administration was to be maintained in
' the Church. Only two possible solutions existed;2 the one, to add
1 to the present income by the resumption of a part of the impropria-
tions and other ecclesiastical property secularised at the Reforma
tion : the other, to restore the old incomes by the payment once more
of the full value of the tithes of all property, either by a renewal
of the old payment in kind or by a new commutation on the basis
i of the new prices. In the face of parliamentary opposition, any
general change in commutation was not to be hoped for and the
-most feasible method of reinstating tithing in kind was through
the decisions of the ecclesiastical courts. When some individual
brought a modus decimandi to his attention in an actual suit at
law, the ecclesiastical judge should declare it void, unless it was
established beyond reasonable doubt, and reinstate tithing in kind.
There were certainly many fraudulent claims in 1600. In many
parishes, where there had been no custom, the villagers were now
seeking by every possible means, even by perjury, to establish one.
In other districts, they sought to overlook recent agreements, made
to relieve to some extent the distress caused by the economic changes,

Canter
bury

Norwich

Peter
borough

Lincoln

\ Inductions

1603 |
[ Resignations
f Inductions

—

8
33

12
55

1604 \
[ Resignations
f Inductions

11
41

4
12

27
70

1605]
1 Resignations

f Inductions
1606]
[ Resignations

40
17

43
15

2 Some incomes were increased by
voluntary contributions from the pa
rishioners or from the patron (the
Puritan cases are well authenticated
instances) but what was needed was

not a temporary or voluntary increase
which might, any day, be rescinded
or decreased, but a legal and perma
nent augmentation.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

in order to return to an earlier modus more advantageous for them
than the present one. Where the parishioners could not change the
modus, they tried to interpret it in their favour and a general agree
ment seems to have been tacitly and unconsciously formulated all
over England, that the small tithes of honey, wax, a few eggs, the
loppings of trees, the gleanings from the hay-field after the workers
had finished, were no longer to be paid.1 These, however, were now
valuable to the clergyman out of all proportion to their real worth
because they were paid in kind and, estimated at the new prices,
amounted to a considerable share of his nominal income. The large
number of suits for such small tithes makes it clear that the clergy

^ was meeting a good deal of opposition and that the laity did not
intend to pay a penny more than was necessary. These fraudulent
and unsupported claims were to be swept aside by legal decisions.

— Nor was real injustice committed by such a restoration of tithes,
however the matter was regarded, for it merely put into effect the
intention of the parties to the original pact : they had agreed on a
price which roughly represented a tenth of the value and the lay
man had intended that the clergyman should have that proportion.
Now, however, by the change in circumstances, the original agree
ment was actually nullified and the injustice lay not in changing
the commutation but in maintaining it.

This plan, however, was neither new nor original and meant no
more than the annulling of such modi decimandi as would not bear
legal scrutiny. The action of the courts was the same which long
had been customary in the adjudication of disputes between indi
viduals, for every modus was to be questioned by the rector of the
parish. The difference between the situation in 1605 and that of
•, the previous decades lay in the thorough-going attempt to secure a
1 legal adjudication upon every commutation which was in any way

i There were numbers of suits for 908: Plowden, (1816 Edition) 468 a:
these small tithes. They must have CroTce, T, 477. Involving broom, fen-
been quite valuable or no one would nel, after-math, etc. see Moore, 910,
have gone to the expense of litigation 683. And as to tame turkeys, pheas-
to secure them or to defend them. ants, partridges and their eggs, see
In fact, some of these cases, which Moore. 599. Trees under 20 years
nominally concerned only tithe pig- growth, see Moore, 541, 908 : Croke, I,
eons or the loppings of trees, went 477. I^ry cattle giving no milk, see
through several courts. Croke, I, 476, 786. Tithes are not

For eases involving barren land see due for fuel burned in the house,

in the Law Reports, Dyer, 170: Croke, I, 609; nor for the overplus of

Moore, 909 : Croke, I, 475. For cases wood cut for making hedges, Crolce, 1,

on loppings of trees see Moore, 762, 499.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

. doubtful. And, while the initiative nominally proceeded from the
individual rector, and, while we have no knowledge of any general
directions or orders issued by the Archbishop to the clergy to try
the validity of their modus decimandi at law,1 something must have
been said to the clergy at Visitations and a tacit understanding
certainly prevailed among the ecclesiastical judges, that only the

• most unimpeachable proof of the existence of a modus decimandi

'was to be recognised and that, wherever it was not forthcoming,
tithing in kind was to be restored.

The crisis was, no doubt, hastened by the new corporate feeling,
which Bancroft had infused into the clergy, and that thorough
loyalty, one to another and to the Church, had no small in
fluence in determining the attitude of the Church in these con
flicts with the law courts. Bancroft had made men realise, as never
before since the Reformation, the importance of the Church as an
\ institution and had roused them to a consciousness that this very
institutional life was in such grave danger that the support of
every member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy was of vital impor
tance. This feeling was new.

During the reign of Elizabeth the pillaging of ecclesiastical in-

k comes had gone on apace among the lesser gentry ; nonconformity
had been rife; the law courts had been busy robbing the Courts

^Christian of their jurisdiction; and no one had seemed to care.
Every bishop and clergyman seemed to be concerned, not with the
future of the Church or with its fate as an institution, but solely
with his own affairs, content if he could maintain his position,
despite the Canonical regulations, and if he could win his own little
case at law. The consciousness of a united Church behind him

, and of the militant spirit roused among the ecclesiastical lawyers,
no doubt had much to do with Bancroft 's decision to deliver so firm

Can attack upon the stronghold of the common law.

For this resumption of tithing in kind, Bancroft found express
authority in the old Canon Law, for he read in Lindwood, 199, that
no custom could be held good which was less than the just, tenth
which it commuted. It was also well established at ecclesiastical
law, that "if the Minister or Curate may not be maintained by the
residue of the Tythes, he may sue for the whole Tythe. And if there

i There are some cases in his Beg- tithe disputes secured bx episcopal or
ister at Lambeth of settlements of archiepiscopal arbitration.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

be a composition betwixt the Curate and his parishioner, that hee
shall pay no Tithe, this composition is mearly void. ' ' 1 Verbal
agreements might be made at any time by any vicar with his pa
rishioners but, by canon law, such an agreement would not bind his
^successor. Here was law enough to have condemned nearly every
• modus decimandi in England in 1604, though the Archbishop was
far too politic to appeal to such enactments at so late a date. But
'he was convinced that, in some legal fashion, the amelioration of
ecclesiastical incomes must be carried out. The attempt to do this
and to strengthen the administrative fabric of the Church brought
(the ecclesiastical courts into collision with the common law courts
\and so caused the flood of prohibitions over which the two jurisdic-
[tions quarreled so fiercely from 1604 to 1611.

Naturally the whole question of tithes had long been a matter of
legal decision in the ecclesiastical courts and all those decisions had
now to be considered and reconsidered, for laymen and clergymen,
as each were impelled by their interest, were determined to claim ad
vantage of every point rightly theirs by law. Must the parishioner
reap the vicar 's tenth or can he leave it standing ; if the parishioner
must reap it, must he bind it into sheaves and also make it into
piles ? Can the vicar take the tithe of wheat or hay as it lies spread
out on the ground or must he wait until it has been gathered into
windrows? Can he choose which tenth he will have or must he
take what the farmer gives him? Where saffron ripens only once
in three years, is the vicar entitled to three-tenths or only one-
tenth? 2 Thus, the whole subject of tithes went to the ecclesiastical
courts for decision and there it became the bone of contention in
the renewal of the old struggle of those courts with the courts of
common law which bulked so large in the legal history of the Mid
dle Ages. As in the past, the quarrel took place over the extent
of the two jurisdictions and the common law courts again wielded
their old weapon, the writ of prohibition, which they issued to any
ecclesiastical court which was holding plea of a temporal or, indeed,
of any question properly actionable at common law. The basis of
their interference was their belief that the ecclesiastical court was

1 Fulbecke, A Conference of Laws, give us a great mass of ill digested
part II, 3 a. and, in many cases, contradictory evi-

2 In addition to the Law Beports, dence. Even Selden at times treats
the tracts of Fulbecke, Ridley, Carle- his material in a singularly uncriti-
ton, and Selden 's History of Tithes, cal manner.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

exceeding its jurisdiction. The prohibition, having been served on
the ecclesiastical suitor, was then returned by him and his counsel,
to the common law court on the day appointed when the question
of jurisdiction was argued by counsel, and if the common law judge
was convinced, as he not infrequently was, that the information
upon which he had acted, was false and that the suit belonged in the
spiritual court, he then issued a writ of consultation, bidding the
ecclesiastical judge proceed as if no prohibition had ever been sued
out. The importance of the prohibition, in the upbuilding of the

^common law of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is simply
incalculable : its very name began to possess manifold connotations
and a certain mystic value as a talisman protecting the liberty of
the subject.

The general situation was, however, very different in 1604 from
what it had been. The history of prohibitions properly begins in

* the reign of Henry III, if not earlier, but while the large number
of them issued shows that they were systematically used by the com
mon law courts, little is definitely ascertainable about their use in
regard to the matters most in controversy in 1604.1 It is, however,
reasonably clear that the ecclesiastical courts were striving to de
cide questions of land tenure and of lay property in general and
that in this attempt they were defeated by the royal courts. After
the Reformation, when the struggle was renewed with vigour, two
clear precedents stood out from the confusion and mistiness of the
past: the one, that the ecclesiastical courts might not take cog
nisance of land tenure or its incidents: the other, that they might
not hold plea of suits concerning debts or lay chattels except in
matrimonial and testamentary cases.2 On every topic which might
possibly be in doubt, the boundary line between the two jurisdic
tions was so nebulous and vague that it was truly difficult for any
one to see where lay the right decision. If there was a right and a
wrong about it, the two courts could not agree as to which was
which. Both claimed, in the debate which we are about to describe,
that in the past their contentions had been accepted by both courts
as the truth. Yet, if any agreement had been made, it was impera-

1 Pollock and Maitland, History of of mutual disagreement and recrimi-
English Law, II, 199. nation even in the sixteenth century.

2 Exactly what these phrases meant, The principle was admitted, but it
what was a debt, what was a lay was always possible to argue that any
chattel or what was a matrimonial or particular case did not fall within its
testamentary case, was constant cause provisions.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

tive that it should be recognised and made clear, an end which
could not be achieved without argument and recrimination. Fur
thermore, if both sides could have agreed as to what the terms of
the former settlement were, the situation had so altered that many
reasons would have urged a modification of its terms.

Chiefest of all, the ecclesiastical courts, which had been during
the Middle Ages distinctly inferior to the legatine courts and those
of the papal curia at Rome, were made, by the abolition of papal
authority, the supreme ecclesiastical judicature in England.1 The
£ojl?l. of Arclies became the supreme court of appeal (except of
course for the statutory Court of Delegates) the Prerogative Court
could now give final decisions in matters testamentary and probate
without fear of having its decrees overridden by appeals to Rome ;
the Court of Audience, the Court of Faculties (which issued dispen
sations) all became, in their departments, the supreme ecclesiastical
authority in England. The bishops' consistory courts, even the
archidiaconal courts and bishops' commissaries, gained greatly in
power and dignity by the change, not because any of them received
new grants of authority but because, the possibility of appeal to
Rome having been removed, the same powers became relatively
greater than ever before. As the statute provided, all of the old
canon law, which was not repugnant to the statutes of the realm
and to the common law, remained in force, but no declaration was
made at any time of what was and what was not thus annulled.2
Yet, if there was a definite right and wrong to the quarrel between
the two jurisdictions, if the question had been decided in the Mid
dle Ages or by the Reformation statutes, neither could induce the
other to admit the fact. While therefore the problem of the right
and of the wrong, of the legal and illegal, might interest lawyers

1 The best thing in print on the are here concerned not with the theory

ecclesiastical courts is Bishop Stubbs 's but with the actuality,
appendix to the report of the Com- 2 Ideas were entertained of issuing

mission upon the Ecclesiastical Courts, an authoritative codification but it

Parliamentary Documents, 1883, was never done. If any legal state-

xxiv. This, however, is very brief. ment had been made by the common

Makower's excellent account in his law courts or by any other authority,

Constitutional History of the Church it was not produced (unless Coke''s

of England is too brief to be of much ' ' book cases ' ' and precedents answer

assistance in this connection, for it that description) and the ecclesiasti-

contains merely the skeleton of the cal lawyers refused to admit that any

ecclesiastical fabric. So much the decision had ever been made. So

student of institutional history must much is fact : what the real truth was

know as a matter of course but we is an academic inquiry.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

and while they might be able to solve it, we, as historians of the
Church, may safely treat the subject purely as a narrative of dis
putes and debates which had a momentous influence upon the his
tory of the Church as an institution. We need not decide the right
and the wrong of the controversy but we must investigate
thoroughly the issues involved and see how it was that so pro
longed a controversy could take place over questions which each
side insisted were perfectly easy of solution.

In the first place, the legal status of the tithes had been altered.

* Previous to the sixteenth century, few tithes were paid to laymen
and those which did not go to the vicar himself were paid to some
monastery or to some semi-ecclesiastical corporation, such as a trade-
guild, so that tithes bore distinctly an ecclesiastical aspect as prop
erty which no layman could conscientiously hold,1 There was,
therefore, very little question that the ecclesiastical courts ought
to decide all cases and disputes rising out of them and the right
to receive them. Now, when the dissolution of the monasteries
placed in lay hands much property, to which was annexed the right
of receiving the tithes, the status of the whole subject was at once

A altered. The temporal courts soon decided that the right to receive
the payments of the tenths (in technical phrase, the impropria-
tions) passed with the land and could be bought and sold as any
other lay chattel : in other words, that such tithes had completely

• lost their ecclesiastical character and had become a sort of rent
charge upon the land, paid by a layman to a layman because of im
memorial custom. There was, therefore, some ground for arguing
that the impropriated tithe had become a temporal possession, a
part of the layman's lay fief, a thing in which the clergy had no
interest, over which the ecclesiastical courts could exercise no con
trol and a matter with which the temporal courts alone might deal.
Once this view became clear — and even the ecclesiastical courts
admitted its justice— it was inevitable that an idea should
appear that such cases should be impleaded before the common law
tribunals, for the distinct terms of the previous victory had been
that the ecclesiastical judges should not attempt to decide matters
of land tenure, real property, and their incidents. Tithes were now,

i There had been impropriations as Eeformation created, in the law of

well as appropriations before 1530 tithes, few new distinctions: for the

but they had been distinctly irregular most part, it extended and legalised

and without clear legal status. The certain practices already in existence.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

in some cases, not only temporal possessions but distinct adjuncts
of real property. In such cases the clergyman, who served the cure,
usually received no money as his stipend but a certain part of the
tithes paid directly to him by the parishioners, and this part, it
might be fairly claimed, still retained an ecclesiastical character.
Yet the laymen who paid them declared that really the vicar re
ceived not tithes but an allowance from the impropriator, which

.. having become purely temporal, ought to be tried in a common law
'court. A great many parishes were affected by this contention,
which, of course, was doubly true where the clergyman was paid by
the patron in money or where the parishioners paid the parson in
money for the patron.

The statutes of Henry VIII and Edward VI, however, were ex
plicit in their directions that laymen should sue for tithes at eccles-

; iastical law and they were passed precisely because the altered sta
tus of tithes was not recognised by either ecclesiastical or common
law, so that, as things stood, the lay impropriator had no right to
sue in any court for his tithes. He had no rights according to ec
clesiastical law, which did not admit that a layman was capable
of holding such property at all, while at common law, the courts
had never had jurisdiction over tithes. Wherefore, said the pre
amble to the act of 32 Henry VIII c. 7, "divers of the King's sub
jects . . . cannot, by Order and Course of the Ecclesiastical laws
of this Realm, sue in any Ecclesiastical Court for the wrongful with
holding and detaining of the said tithes and duties nor cannot, by
the order of the Common Laws of this Realm, have any due Rem
edy." The act of Edward VI (2 & 3 Edward VI c. xm, s. 13)
was even more explicit, for, in the body of the act, it declared "that
it shall not be lawfull unto the Parson, Vicar, Proprietor, Owner
or other their Farmers or Deputies, contrary to this Act, to convent
or sue such Witholder of Tithes, Obventions and other Duties afore
said, before any other Judge than Ecclesiastical." In the face of
these explicit statements, it can hardly be maintained that both
Henry VIII and Edward VI did not intend that all suits of any
description for tithes (whether by the vicar or by the lay impropria
tor) should be tried in the ecclesiastical a and not in the common law

1 The ecclesiastical lawyers de- withstanding all which good provi-
clared that such was the law. "Not- sion of ancient Kings before the

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

courts. Intent and legal accomplishments are. however, two dif
ferent things.

The exact boundaries of the parishes began to figure largely in

t. suits at law x for, of two adjoining parishes, one often possessed a

1 modus decimandi more advantageous to the parishioner or vicar
than the other and suits might be brought on the ground that the
land in question really ought to pay tithes in another parish. So
long as the parish was merely an ecclesiastical division, there could
be no doubt but that the ecclesiastical judges ought to decide its
bounds, but the Tudors had made the parish the unit of local gov
ernment and had forced the vestrymen and wardens to oversee the
building of roads and bridges and the care of the poor. The parish

.was fast becoming a secular unit under the fostering care of the
Privy Council and of the justices of the peace and there was,
therefore, a good deal of basis for the contention that the bounds
of the parishes should be decided at common law. The decision of
the point, however, often drew in its train momentous consequences
for the income of some vicar.

The two sets of judges were by no means in accord as to what a
valid modus decimandi was. The ecclesiastical judges insisted that
something reasonably equivalent in value to the actual tenth com
muted should be assured the clergyman and quoted canon law to
the effect that, if the commutation so reduced that vicar's income
that he could no longer live upon it, he had a right to reinstate by
legal process the original tithes in kind. The common lawyers dif
fered in opinion and declared that the legal modus was whatever
had been substituted in the past by mutual consent for the actual

- tenth.2 The fact that the relation of the parties had changed, that
the value of the commutation had altered, was not, they insisted.

Conquest and moderne Kings since All should be ended in one and the

the Conquest, for the assuring of the selfesame court, which would be a

suit of Tythes to the Ecclesiasticall great ease to the subject who now to

Courtes onely and the Continuall pos- his intolerable vexation and excessive

session that the Ecclesiasticall Courtes charges is compelled to runne from

have had of the same . . . those Stat- Court to Court and to gather up, as it

utes which then were intended for were, one lim of his cause here and

the good of the Ecclesiasticall Courtes another there, and yet happily in the

are now become the utter ruine and end cannot make a whole and perfect

overthrowe of the same. . . . Tythes. body of it." Eidley, View, p. 138.
by the said Statutes, are onely re- 1 For instance, CroTce, I, 228, 659.

coverable by the Ecclesiasticall law, 2 Ridley, View, p. 180. A modus

and not elsewhere: so also the cus- decimandi "by the Common Law is

tome whereby they are paid is only counted to be good by paying a thing

triable at the Ecclesiasticall law. . . . never so small in lieu thereof."

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

of legal cognisance : the law was the law because it was law, because
it existed ; and reason, equity, logic and justice could not change the
fact that it was law, when once it had been established that this
was the old agreement. In other words, the ecclesiastical lawyer
insisted that to be a good modus it must represent reasonably well
the value of the tenth : the common lawyer declared that the value
was not at issue and that the modus was good, if it could be proved
that it was the agreement which had been made.

This was a serious disagreement and another of equal importance
soon developed over the question how a modus decimandi should be
proved. The statute of Edward VI provided that the custom in use
for the previous forty years should be treated as the correct one
and the ecclesiastical judges, assuming that payment in kind was
the regular legal method of tithing and that commutation was an
exception to the rule, were inclined to throw the burden of proof
upon the parishioner and decree that, unless he could prove his alle
gations, tithing in. kind must be resumed. On the other hand, the
common Jaw judge, conscious that in nearly every parish in the land
some modus had been set up previous to 1549, was inclined to call
upon the parson to demonstrate that the modus claimed by the vil
lagers was not the actual practice and to show what the true custom
was. Either party would very likely be hard pressed to prove his
contention, for written documents were rare and easily lost and
such agreements were, as often as not, made orally with parishioners
too illiterate to read or write. Still the vicar was here more likely
to suffer, for, inasmuch as tithing in kind was the normal state of
things, no record would have been kept, while a definite statement
in writing of the establishment of a breach of the rule would prob
ably have been more often made. The contending parties were
usually forced to show by witnesses what the custom had been.
Here the ecclesiastical judge demanded two who agreed perfectly,
while the common law judge was amply satisfied with one.1 Where
the civilian, clinging to the letter of the statute, asked for definite
testimony of what the custom had been forty years previous, the
common lawyer was satisfied when no witness was produced who
could remember anything to the contrary of what was affirmed2 and

^Croke, I, 667: Croke, II, 269. worn maxim of the courts. We find

Coke, XII, 65. here one of the differences between

"Where the memory of man run- the ecclesiastical law which was in

neth not to the contrary" was a time- the habit of requiring written evi-

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

he accordingly might affirm a custom either older or younger than
the one contemplated by the statute.

Another point on which the two systems. of law tended to differ,
was as to the moment when the grain ceased to be tithes and became
the ordinary property of the parson, making its theft or detention
or loss as much a subject for the common law as if the grain had
continued to be the property of a layman. The common lawyers
asserted that as soon as the grain or titheable property had been
set aside for the minister to carry away, it ceased to be a res spiri-
'•tualia, while the ecclesiastical lawyers insisted that it retained its
ecclesiastical character until the vicar had actually removed it to
some other place. This seems a small point but its decision meant
the adjudication of the vexed question where should tithe cases be
impleaded in which fraud, covin, detention, or illegal carrying away
had taken place. The failure to separate the tithe was admitted
by both parties to be of spiritual cognisance only: it was equally
agreed that the action for theft, or fraud, after the parson had se
cured possession, lay at common law.1 The status of the grain in
the intermediate ground was the important point for, inasmuch
as the majority of cases were for the withholding or detention of
tithes properly severed, it would decide into which court all cases
should go.

Both systems of law were liable to abuse and perversion and
probably both worked much mischief and no inconsiderable in
justice during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Indeed,
the skein was so tangled that no method of unravelling it could
have been found where some knots would not have had to be cut,
where some men would not have received lasting wrong and injury.
There was no one clear and equitable method and it is futile for us

dence, (possible of course among Parson shall hane an action of Tres-
clerks) and the common law where pas at the Common Law. ' ' The pages in
written evidence was in theory an which he discusses the differences he-
anomaly, to be used only when a wit- tween the view of tithes taken by the
ness was not forthcoming. ecclesiastical and common law courts
1 Such a case came up in Leigh v. are illuminating, for, though written
Wood, Croke, I, 607, also reported in by a common lawyer in 1600, they
Moore, 912. In Fulbecke's Confer- show no trace of that uncompromis-
ence of Laws, (part II, 7 a) the com- ing hostility to the ecclesiastical law
mon lawyer says, ' ' if the Parson take which within a few years Coke was
Gates or other graine as his Tythe, to declare had been the attitude of
and an other taketh them awaie from the common law courts time out of
him, the nature is altered, and now mind,
they become a lay chattel and the

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

to-day to blame either one or the other for cruelty or injustice.
For all these reasons, a given set of facts could be read in sev
eral ways and almost any case could be drawn into either court
upon some specious plea. The villager-, for instance, separates his
tithes properly enough but leaves them in his barnyard with the
gate locked, so that the parson cannot get in and the grain spoils.1
If it can be proved in court that the gate was locked, he has been
guilty of fraud : if it \vas not, the parson has lost his grain through
his own fault in not coming sooner to get it. The crux of the mat
ter, then, argue the common lawyers, is whether or not that gate
was locked and that surely is a temporal matter to be determined
at common law. The ecclesiastical lawyer pleads per contra that
it is a case of tithes, which properly belongs in the ecclesiastical
court, where the incidental question, whether or not the gate was
locked, ought also be settled. If two parsons join in a dispute as
to which of them ought to receive the tithes of a particular piece
of land, the ecclesiastical lawyer decides readily that here is a mat
ter for the ecclesiastical court, for two clerics are engaged in a
dispute. Quite the contrary, objects the barrister, for they were
disputing whether a certain piece of land lies within a certain
parish or not and the question of the boundaries of parishes is
purely temporal.

Nothing can demonstrate so well as an actual case how complica
ted these suits often were and how many lines of decision might be
taken. Kyfeley, the impropriator or lay owner of the tithes of the
parsonage of Sapsto, sued Curtis, a farmer, for default of tithes.2
Dullingham, the rector of a neighbouring village, who was thus a
third party, as the legal phrase runs, brought a prohibition from
the Court of Common Pleas against Kyfeley 's suit in the ecclesias
tical court, on the ground that the very tithes in dispute had been
commuted into thirteen cheeses per annum, which were due to him.
He further alleged that he had offered this plea in the spiritual
court where it had been refused as inconclusive. Accordingly, now,
as we follow one or the other thread, we shall be forced to accord
the common or the ecclesiastical law the trial of the case. The
original suit was between two laymen about certain tithes which had

1 This was Blackwell 's Case. supported against Bancroft.
Crofce, T, 844. Sir Edward Coke him- i CroJce, I, 251. Another excellent

self was counsel in this case and lost case on this point is Benton v. Trot,

it on the very contention he later Moore 528

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

lost, beyond all dispute, their ecclesiastical character and, on this
ground, we might well believe that the case ought to be heard at
common law. On the other hand, they voluntarily began their suit
before an ecclesiastical tribunal and were apparently willing to
await its decision and abide by it, when suddenly a third party
claimed a right to drag them to common law. Here equity and jus
tice would seem to demand that the trial continue in the Courts
Christian and all the more so as they were disputing solely the right
of tithes, of which only the ecclesiastical courts had cognisance.
Nevertheless, Dullingham had set up a plea of a modus which the
ecclesiastical court had refused and this was a "suggestion" on
which the temporal courts, again and again, declared that a pro
hibition ought regularly to be upheld. Further, the issue might be
joined over the question as to which parish church ought to have
the tithes, and as this involved the question of boundaries, it could
be tried at common law, or it might have been urged in reply, that
as the modus on which Dullingham declared, had been his agree
ment with the parson of Sapsto, the issue between the two parsons
ought to be decided by canon law. Surely, neither court ought to
have lacked an opportunity to draw such a suit before it.

This conflict, however, was no war of the laity against the clergy,
though a layman might be expected to be more easily dissatisfied
with the ruling of the ecclesiastical court than the cleric. Any one
who will take the trouble and time to search the law reports will
find that prohibitions were as often secured by the vicar as by his
parishioner.1 In the case just cited, Dullingham v. Kyfeley, the ec
clesiastic secured a prohibition from the temporal court against two
laymen voluntarily suing in the Court Christian. In Smith v.
Clarke,2 a claimant to a benefice sued the actual incumbent for not
reading the Thirty-Nine Articles and assenting to them as by law
required, whereupon the vicar, thus sued for a purely ecclesiastical
offence by a brother clergyman, secured a prohibition from the
common law to bar the suit, although he could claim only by a
fiction that the ecclesiastical court was considering a temporal mat
ter. In Quarles v. Fayrchild,3 one layman sued another in Court

iCoke later on made good use of themselves by the very reasons he
this point, declaring that the eccles- himself gave the Archbishop,
iastical position could not be thor- 2 Crolce-, T, 252.

oughly legal, inasmuch as the clergy 3 CroTce, I, 653. Also, Pratt v.

themselves sued at common law, Stocke, Crolce, I, 315 and Dr. Hunt s
sought prohibitions and justified Case, CroTce, T, 262.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

Christian about the ownership of an advowson and, after the case
had been heard, tried, and sentenced according to ecclesiastical law,
the defeated party secured a prohibition from the common law
courts to prevent the execution of the sentence. It might be sup
posed, from a general view of the subject, that those who asked for
prohibitions were moved by doubts concerning the validity of the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction but, in view of the evidence afforded us
by the law reports, the hypothesis must be declared untenable.
The only rule which results from a careful study of the prohibitions
preserved to us, is that the party, who lost his suit in the ecclesias
tical courts, sought a prohibition as a means of trying still further
the issue between himself and his adversary, in the hope that the
other judge would see the whole problem in a little different light
and reverse the decision. The whole process is precisely similar
to an appeal, at the present day, to the High Court of Appeals or
the House of Lords and was not made with the intention of reflect
ing on the legality or procedure of the court from which the "ap
peal ' ' was taken, but with the purpose of winning the suit if it were
possible.1 In fact, the use of the prohibition was a sort of convenient
fiction, by which a sort of "appeal," which the law did not permit,
was made possible. A case came up before the court of Common
Pleas, in 34 Elizabeth, on prohibition, where the defendant stated
that the plaintiff had already been defeated in the spiritual court,
that he had then procured an inhibition from the Chancery, which
court had, on a hearing, upheld the spiritual decision, and that he
now brought this prohibition in the Common Pleas to stay the exe
cution of the sentence. The judges unanimously granted him a
consultation, "for otherwise, he shall be infinitely vexed, that,
when one court grants a consultation, he shall sue a prohibition in
another court. ' ' 2

A man named Fuller sued one Clemens about the ownership of a
rectory in Norfolk and was defeated in the bishop's Consistory
Court, because he had only one witness where the ecclesiastical law
required two. He then appealed to the Court of Arches, and there
was again defeated upon the same ground. Having thus voluntarily

1 There was little difference in the soon have sent all such cases to the
penalty awarded by the two systems common law where a much superior
of courts, for those matters were re- remedy by fine or distraint was pro-
gulated by statute: otherwise, the curable,
weakness of the sole ecclesiastical 2 CroJce, I, 277.

penalty — excommunication — would

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

submitted his case twice to the arbitrament of the ecclesiastical
courts, he sued forth a prohibition at common law, alleging, ' ' that,
the case being only who had the best estate in the said rectory by
Common Law this ought to be tried by Common Law and not in
the ecclesiastical court: for this is the birthright of the subject,
to have his inheritance and freehold tried and determined by com
mon law, for the civil law differs much in the deciding of inheri
tances . . -1 That as all matters in law ought to be determined by
the Judges of the law . . . this question is not fit to be determined
by the ecclesiastical Judges, but by the Judges of the Common
Law. ' ' The judges apparently did not consider that his birthright
had been danger, for they upheld the decision of the ecclesiastical
courts.2 The motives which impelled litigation were in the six
teenth century precisely the same as they are to-day — the desire
to recover property, to be paid damages for injuries, and the pur
suit of that object wherever success seemed most easily achieved,
irrespective of the niceties" of legal procedure and of jurisdictional
controversies which the suitors very likely did not comprehend.

The uncertainty and the disagreement between the courts as to
what the law of tithes really was ; the numerous legal theories, any
of which might be selected as the basis for a decision ; the actual in
justice perpetrated by the law as it existed and by almost any de
cision rendered by either system of courts ; the unwillingness of the
defeated party to abide by the first decision ; all tended to produce
a vast amount of litigation and to foment the quarrel already begun
between the two jurisdictions. Each had specious pleas of law,
justice, and equity in favour of its contentions ; each believed that
the safety of the Church or State depended upon the continuance of
its efforts ; each had secured the support of powerful interests in the
nation. The one had behind it the clergy who wished to increase
their incomes ; the other possessed the adherence of the laity who
' were eager to keep for themselves the money which accrued from
' these tithes. Each was so clearly right in some of its contentions

i Croke, I, 571, 736. The Bishop the Star Chamber, King's Bench,

of Coventry and Lichfield in the Common Pleas, and the assizes, and

course of litigation on one case in quarter sessions in the county itself.

1583 against several laymen was three Eecord Office, Exchequer Documents,

times before the Privy Council, twice Q. R Ecclesiastical. Bundle 9, No. 6.

before the High Commission, twice Original, signed.

before the Archbishop of Canterbury, 2 Coke, EeporU. XTT, 65-67. See

besides attendance in the Chancery, also Halliwel v. Jervoise, Moore. 462.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

that it could not conceive of the existence of any weak points in
its case. In fact what made the breach serious was the existence
of right on both sides.

Since the Reformation, the common law courts had from time to
time issued prohibitions at the request of suitors in cases of tithes,
as well as in other classes of ecclesiastical litigation. The judges
had at one time followed one of the possible lines of argument and
at others, such different lines that the decisions recorded in the law
reports presented anything but one uniform stream of precedent
1 in 1600. The printed law books accessible to the judges and law
yers of the sixteenth century, such as the Year Books, Fitzherbert 's
Natura Brevium, and Brook's Abridgement, contained precedents
upon prohibitions as early as Henry VI and Edward IV which bore
more or less directly upon the issues presented to them in the last
decade of the sixteenth century, showing that in individual cases
the issue was by no means new. But among these old precedents,
of which the diligence of a dozen searchers found comparatively
few,1 there was very little agreement. Brook gave a statement from
38 Henry VI that "according to the common law, the spiritual
court had no power to hold plea in any sort of the right of tithes
between lay patrons. ' ' 2 This decided, however, nothing further,
if indeed it was more than a dictum or a statement of counsel, than

1 The long rows of citations pro- claimed to be of common law cogniz-
duced on all occasions by Coke and ance, id. f. 164 b. no. 1. case of 9
the Crown lawyers cannot be accepted Henry VI ; that ' ' quar ou le common
without scrutiny, for many of them ley poet meller, le spirituall court ne
prove on investigation to be cases mellera, " case of 22 Ed. IV, ibid. p.
which we would not to-day consider in 165 b. No. 14; and No. 19, a case
point at all and the vast majority of 10 Henry VI. On the other hand,
were only dicta. In truth, there were a case of tithes between two parsons
records of prohibitions in plenty, but was declared in 2 Henry VII to be of
not a great many in point. This spiritual cognizance, ibid, f. 165 b,
Bancroft was clever enough to see. No. 16. Here are certainly the out-
Coke denied it and asserted that all lines of the later common law posi-
his cases were in point and that, at tion, gathered out of as easily acces-
any rate, no one but the judges of sible and well known a source as
the common law had any right to Brook. It was not true, as the clerics
decide whether they were in point or insisted, that there were no precedents
not. Some undoubtedly did support at common law but neither was it
his contentions, that tithes were some- true that all of Coke 's statements
times subject to common law juris- found clear precedent in the old law.
diction as lay chattels before the leg- 2 Brook, Abridgement, II, 165, no.
islation of Henry VIII. Brook, 7. (Ed. 1573). "Al common ley le
Abridgement, (1573), IT, f. 164 b. spirituall court nauer power de tener
no. 3, case of 44 Edward III: certain plee de nul parte de droit de dismes
cases of tithing of woodland were inter patrons."

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

that even so purely ecclesiastical a matter as the right to receive
tithes became temporal when in question between two laymen.
Nevertheless, on this very point, the statute of Henry VIII, (which
was presumably drawn up with legal counsel) stated that laymen
"cannot by the order of the Common Laws of this Realm have any
due remedy." The Doctor and Student,1 a book written about the
middle of Henry VIII 's reign and considered authoritative by
lawyers under Elizabeth and James I, said that even if the eccle
siastical judges "would not allow the said prescription (for tithes)
yet I thinke no prohibicon should lye, for though the Judges in a
spirituall matter 2 deny the parties of iustice yet the kinges lawes
cannot reforme that but must remit it to their conscience. But if
there were some remedie prouided in that case it were well done,
for some saye that in the spirituall Court they wil admit no plee
against tithes. ' ' In 1553, a prohibition was asked for on the ground
that the ecclesiastical judge had refused as conclusive such a state
ment as that the tithes had been commuted into one payment of
twelve pence and the writ was granted, for the general opinion of
all the judges on the King's Bench was, that no proof was needed:
upon such a statement, they would a priori issue the writ, because
the Courts Christian would not admit such pleas.3

The course of the decisions made during Elizabeth's reign was

no more unified and clear than that of the earlier cases. The King's

Bench and Common Pleas took opposite views of the selfsame facts

and the same court, at different times, made rulings which clearly

contradicted each other. In the case of Mallary v. Mariot, in the

Court of Common Pleas,4 a prohibition had been asked for on the

ground that the ecclesiastical courts refused to accept the testimony

of one witness, as was sufficient at common law, but required him

to produce two. The court granted the prohibition, declaring that

\"it would be a greater inconvenience to bring two witnesses to

1 prove payment to every sort of tithes." The King's Bench, on the

other hand, declared, on the' same facts, in Futter v. Whiskin,5-

' a decision which Chief Justice Coke later quoted as authoritative—

that "such a surmise, that he hath but one witness is not sufficient

to have a prohibition where the ecclesiastical Court hath jurisdiction

1 Edition of 1569, p. 177 a. 1688, f. 79.

2 The inference plainly is that the * CroTce, I, 667.

modus decimandi is a spiritual matter. * Croke, II, 269 and 270.

» Dyer's Eeports, French Edition, XII, Eeports, 66.

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

of the principal." The case was a clear-cut issue of the fraudulent
detention of tithes, a matter which the ecclesiastical court might
otherwise have decided, yet the same court, in a case of legacy, which
also was admittedly ecclesiastical in character, said, that "if he had
surmised, that he had pleaded this release in that court and pro
duced his witness and that they would not allow it because it had
not two witnesses, this had been a good surmise. " 1 Other examples
might be added2 but these will perhaps suffice to show that the de
cisions were contradictory in some cases and that the same confusion
prevailed among the cases that were decided on minor points as did
among those adjudicated on the real debatable ground of tithes and
their incidents.

The cause of this difference of judicial opinion lay, of course,
- primarily in the difficulty of the subject itself and the frequent
shifting of equity from one side to the other. An examination of
most of the reports leaves in the mind of the student, a belief that
the common law judges were attempting, until 1600 at least, to ren
der a decision which should be as equitable as possible, not only to
the suitors in the case but to the ecclesiastical courts. At one mo
ment, the parson was clearly in the right and needed assistance
from the common law; at another time, the tables were reversed
and he deserved his defeat at ecclesiastical law. Even on that vexed
point as to the refusal of a plea of a modus decimandi by the spirit
ual court, the common law judges gave reasons for their action
which clearly evince an attempt at justice to all parties. A parish
ioner was sued by his vicar for tithes of hay and when his plea that
they had been commuted was refused in the Court Christian, he se
cured a prohibition from the common law. "Here it is only a modus
decimandi ..." said the judges, "yet it is good, for otherwise there
will be a great mischief, for the Spiritual Court will not allow a
plea of modus decimandi but only of payment of tithes in kind.

iBagnall v. Stokes, CroTce, I, 88. 2 Cullier v. Cullier, CroTce. I 201

It is hard to make out whether there with Dr. Hunt's Case, id 262- Blinco

s a distinction here between his plea v. Barksdale, id. 578 with Crouch v.

that he had only one witness which Fryer, id. 784; Savel v. Wood, id. 71

would be refused hearing in the ec- with Scory v. Baber, id. 276 •' Eiesby

elesiastie.nl court, and a plea that he v. Wentworth id. 642 with Smith v

had actually offered his witness and Shelbonrne, id. 685; Norwood's Case'

had been refused: that is to say, be- id. 684, with Fox's Case, id 709-'

tween the probability and the ac- Dyer. 151 b, 4 & 5 Ph. & Marv with

tua»ty. T>yer 264 b, 9. Eliz.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Therefore the Common Law shall aid him." x On the other
hand, the same judges showed themselves equally ready to protect
the parson from fraud. A layman, who set out his tithes and then
carried off a part, had been defeated by his viear in the ecclesiasti
cal court and then asked for a prohibition to stop the proceedings
against him, but his request was refused: "otherwise mischief would
ensue to the parson in that he would secretly set his tithes forth
so as the parson should not know thereof and would afterwards
carry them away." 2 Then appeared a case between two clergymen,
the rector and the vicar, the former of whom had always been paid
the great tithes while the latter had received the small. A certain
field, usually sowed with corn, had ranked with the great tithes
and had therefore rendered tribute to the rector, but one year it was
sowed with saffron, which was accounted a small tithe. The rector
declared that, inasmuch as he had always had the tenth from that
field, he ought still to receive it and the vicar insisted, in his turn,
that according to the agreement all small tithes were his. Thereup
on the rector sought a prohibition at common law, to rob the vicar
of the decision which it became clear he would get in the ecclesiasti
cal court, but the judges refused him a prohibition on the ground
that the tithes ought to be paid to the vicar.3 Yet another case was
remanded to the ecclesiastical court on the ground that if a prohibi
tion were granted, "then he should never have any remedy for
them (the tithes) for, if he may not sue for them in the Spiritual
Court, he can not sue for them here." (i. e. common law.4)

There were not wanting, however, signs to show that, if ever the

»/ common law judges became hostile to the ecclesiastical pretensions,

i there would be ample precedents from which they might argue.

Naturally, the two contradictory lines of decisions, which have been

already described, might serve as precedent for any course the

judges might choose to adopt and give them an assured backing of

old law. There sounded also in many decisions the note of change.

One of the fundamental points of ecclesiastical procedure was the

i Croke, T, 317. See also, Folcott issued are in Lansdowne MSS. 101,

v. Ridge, CroTce, I, 333. Ingolsby v. f. 229.

Johnson, id. 786; Crimes v. Smith 3 Bedingfield v. Feak, Crofce, T, 467 ;

and Bedle v. Beard, both in XIT Ee- also Moore, 909.
ports. 4, 5 4 Vaughan v. Beale, CroTce, I, 394.

*Croke,I. 607, Leigh v. Wood, also This was urged by one of the bar-

Lyss v. Watts, id. 277. A number risters and was sustained by the court,
of cases in which consultations were

AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

use of the oath ex officio and, although we do not find the judges
declaring it illegal, one of them said that the ecclesiastical courts
might use the oath only in causes testamentary and matrimonial,
" where noe Discredit can be to the party by his oath." 1 Another
dispute arose over a matter of tithes which it was claimed had been
commuted for the use of twenty acres of pasture and of twenty
acres of woodland. The defendant proved his commutation in re
gard to the pasture but could not demonstrate the point about the
woodland and had therefore been defeated in the spiritual court.
He secured a prohibition, however, for "all the Court held it to be
well enough ; for it is sufficient that he had it, and the other cannot
shew how . . . The Proof also in a prohibition ought not to be so
precise : but, if it appears that the Court Christian ought not to hold
plea thereof, it sufficeth. . . So here the substance is proved, that
he held the land in satisfaction."2 In other words they accepted
proof that some agreement had been made and did not insist that he
prove that agreement which he had averred in his declaration. This
was quite contrary to the practice of the time, when the slightest
technical imperfection in any pleading was usually sufficient to de
feat the whole suit. They did not apply to the prohibitions the
strict rules which they insisted upon in all other common law pro
ceedings.

Until 1605, however, the dispute had, with a single exception,

been confined to individual cases and to the decisions of individual

judges. There had been no concerted action on either side. It re-

j mained for Bancroft, in the fall of 1605, to make the question a con-

[flict between the Church as an institution, and the judges of the

^common law as a bench.

1 Cullier v. Cullier, Croke, I, 201. Peterborough, id. 241 ; Pett v. Base-
See also id. 675. den, id. 274; Kelley v. Walker, id.

2 Austen v. Piggott, Crolce, I, 736. 665 and in Moore, 915: Wright's
Also Green v. Penilden, id. 228 ; Case, Moore, 425 ; Anonymous, Moore,
Margaret Palmes v. the Bishop of 573.

CHAPTER II

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

Fifteen years of quarrelling, arguing, and writing had produced,
in 1605, an issue as to the manner in which the writs of prohibitions
should be granted — but an issue complicated and confused by all
the refinements and technicalities of which the lawyers on either
side were capable. The real differences were, for the time being,
submerged and probably not clearly seen even by the principal
combatants. To both sides, the significant issue, in 1605, was the
technicalities of legal procedure in the granting of prohibitions.
The ecclesiastical lawyers had, indeed, found the vulnerable spot
in the common lawyers' armour, for, if they could restrict the
practice of prohibitions, the weapon of the common law judges
would be broken, and their claims, thus deprived of the means of
enforcement, would be of little consequence.

The Articuli Cleri of 1605 mark the outbreak of a flame which
had long been smoldering beneath the apparent conscientiousness
of the judges on both sides. During Elizabeth's reign, the disputes
had been entirely tentative, not to say confused and aimless. So
far as men had attempted to substitute tithes in kind for a commu
tation, or vice versa, their essays had been disconnected, and the
product rather of the energy of some individual rector or layman,
than of any concerted movement among either the clergy or laity.
So far as the ecclesiastical judges had supported these attempts by
requiring more stringent proof of the existence of the modus deci-
mandi, so far as the common law judges had opposed them, they
had acted, on the whole, according to their individual ideas of
law and expediency. Some amelioration of ecclesiastical incomes
had been effected, but not much; some suffering had resulted for
some laymen, but not for many; and, in almost every case, the de
feated party had acquiesced in the result. While the discussions of
the lawyers had, at times, wandered from the technicalities of pro
cedure to the more general aspects of the problem, they had reached

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

no clearer agreement as to what the latter was than as to where the
remedy was to be found. In fact, such concerted action as there
seemed to be was due rather to the universality of conditions
affecting clergy and laity alike, and stimulating each to f ollow their
interests, than to any definite plan of action on the part of either.
It is possible, but improbable, that the ecclesiastical judges had
reached before 1604 some tacit understanding; it is unlikely that
the common lawyers had any adequate idea of the importance of
the crisis before Coke assumed the leadership. Such universality
and generality as the controversy displayed in 1605 were due not
so much to a common plan as to a common motive.

As early as 1590, the disputes between individuals1 became keen
and prohibitions numerous.2 Moreover, the dispute which had
begun over the difficulties of law and administration, brought into
prominence by the Reformation in cases of tithes, was rapidly
spreading to include every subject over which these was room for
a difference of legal opinion. These were legion. The most funda
mental issues in the relationship of the common law to the ecclesias
tical law had been left unsettled by the Reformation statutes ; the
line between the two jurisdictions, always a difficult matter to
determine, had been made doubly hard to define since the ecclesias
tical courts had been released from their servitage to the papal
/curia; the precise point at which the temporal courts would be

1 The Law Reports, which manifestly fusion that no conclusive results can
contain only a small and perhaps not be hoped for at present. The state-
representative selection from the pro- ments of both judges and advocates
hibitions, would lead us to suppose during later years confirm what we
that they began to be numerous about find in the Eeports. It should be
1592 or a little later. The Articuli borne in mind very carefully that the
Cleri refer several times to the dis- Eeports only give the decisions which
pute as one of recent origin. The were questioned and which might
Civilians' letter to Bancroft (Janu- therefore be expected to be mostly
ary 22, 1609, Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, dubious and irregular. Eeally, in
F, i, f. 107,) states that prohibitions studying the controversy, we are at-
had been numerous only during tempting to deduce the ordinary from
' ' these last twentie years. ' ' Bacon the exceptional ; to learn how far the
stated in his speech on the treble ecclesiastical procedure was just and
value, July 8, 1609, that no suit for equitable by reading the most pre-
treble value had ever been brought in judiced statements of its greatest
a temporal court by confession of the enemies. It is, therefore, a matter
judges themselves until 1586. for surprise that even this evidence

2 Except through the prohibitions should so largely exonerate the eccles-
recorded in the Law Eeports we have iastical judges from any determined
no printed records of the ecclesias- attempt to encroach upon the proper
tical decisions, and the manuscript re- jurisdiction of the common law.
cords are as yet in such absolute con-

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

justified in interfering to preserve their rights of jurisdiction,
the details of the procedure which they could use, had all been
left to circumstances, by the failure of the various attempts made
under Henry VIII and his children so to solve them to the satis
faction of all parties, that a definite settlement could be established.
In seeking to view the wide ramifications of the subject, it must not
be forgotten that, in the sixteenth century, the ecclesiastical juris-

-^ diction included such matters as matrimony, divorce and legitimacy ;
legacies, administrations, probate, and other testamentary ques
tions; slander, libel, perjury, and much more which is to-day of
.purely civil cognisance.1 In every one of these classes of suits,
£the common law judges claimed the right to issue prohibitions.
Tithes were soon lost from sight in the forest of technicalities
which became the chief battle ground of the rival judges for fifteen
years.

No sooner had the misunderstanding become generally known
than the press began to pour forth a large and varied assortment
of tractarian literature. The pamphleteers were not slow to open
the attack with radical assertions which the leaders did not adopt
for a decade or more. In 1590 appeared The Treatisour and the
Notegatherer,- which attacked the High Commission's new powers
as a court of law, declared the ex officio oath illegal and inveighed

* against ecclesiastical procedure in general. They were answered
next year by Bancroft's colleague, Dr. Richard Cosin, in his Apol
ogy of and for sundry Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiastic all.
Then a number of treatises against the ecclesiastical courts, circu
lated (apparently in manuscript) between 1588 and 1597 by Rich
ard Robinson, "dwelling in Cowe Lane, London,"3 served to fan
the flame. A new edition of Richard Crompton's Authentic et
Jurisdiction des courts, in 1594, contained statements displeasing to
the civilians. William Fulbeck, a common lawyer as well as a
civilian, in his A Parallele or Conference of the Civil Law, the
Canon Law and the Common Law of this Realme of England,

1 Of the many attempts to draw up f. 139-190 is a long treatise on the

a complete list of the cases of ec- distinction between the jurisdictions,

clesiastical cognizance, the most fa- 2 A diligent search for these has

mous is in Coke's introduction to been unrewarded. We learn of them

Cawdry's Case in V Reports, only from Cosin 's answer.

40 a. ' A list in Cotton MSS. Cleo- a Barrington MSS. 22, f. 667, in

patra, F. TT. f. 117 gives eighty-eight Inner Temple,
categories. Tn Lansdowne MSS., 253,

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

published in 1601, attempted to show how few differences there
really were between the three, and hinted at the expediency of
admitting, as Cosin had wished, that there was a royal ecclesiastical
law, independent of the common law in matters of its own
cognisance. Fulbeck also published a Direction or Preparatiue to
the Study of the Lawe, and the Pandectes of the law of nations,
both of which, like all these tracts, discussed the wide field of
distinctions which later became so prominent in controversy. This
voluminous tractarian controversy, fruitless enough in its ostensible
results and wearisome to the modern reader, nevertheless fulfilled a
useful purpose by distributing information, sifting extraneous
matter from the real issues, and, on the whole, preparing both
sides to meet each other on some general ground. It also unified
the parties, taught each the numbers, character, and personnel of
its supporters, and even in a measure induced a tentative and dis
orderly organisation. The bishops were the first to awake to the
seriousness of the situation, and the first to take concerted action.

In 1598, two papers, which seem to have been drawn up by
Whitgift, Bancroft, and Cosin, were probably discussed and
amended in Convocation and then submitted to the Privy Council.
They called attention to various points (they did not term them
abuses) which seemed to them reprehensible in the granting of
prohibitions.1

The substance of these studiously moderate statements, mildly
put in the form of questions, as if the bishops somewhat doubted
the truth of their own conclusions, was that the judges issued writs
which were legally bad. The bishops said that no prohibition ought
to be granted, merely on the statement of a lawyer, that the eccle
siastical courts were considering a temporal matter, but that the

i ' ' Certaine pointes which the Eeu- 433. Harleian MSS. 358, f . 186.

erend fathers the Byshops and others Ravdinson MSS. B, 202, f. 110 b.

exeeutinge Ecclesiasticall Jurisdic- "Certaine Collections and inferences

tion partlie by her Majesties imedi- eoncerninge matter of Prohibition

ate Commission under the greate and Consultations not unfitt to be

Scale of England, and partlie by the thought uppon for the better preser-

ordinarie aucthoritie deriued from the vation of her Majesty's Jurisdiction

Crowne, to desire the Lordes and ecclesiasticall. " (1598) Cotton MSS.

others the Reuerend Judges of the Cleopatra, F, I, f. 109; and F, II,

Realme to consider of touchinge the f. 309. Kawlinson MSS. B, 202, f.

grauntinge of Prohibitions." 1598. 108 b. Both the above are printed

Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F. I, f. 112. by Strype, Whitgift, IT, 397 and 430.
Cotton MSS. F, II, f. 313, and f.

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common law judge ought to demand some proof that the assertion
was true; and that this would be most easily accomplished by
requiring him to submit a copy of the proceedings in the spiritual
court (called the "libel"), in which he could point out the words
claiming the jurisdiction to which the ecclesiastical courts had no
right. Nothing short of such demonstration ought to be accepted,
and certainly no sentences from the pleadings of lawyers at the
bar, which the judge might have actually overruled, ought to be
used as a basis for prohibitions. Then, the bishops very much
doubted whether it was just to allow the plaintiff in the ecclesias
tical court to bring a prohibition to defeat his own suit, and, per
contra, when the defendant had allowed the case to proceed as far
as the sentence, it was unfair to permit him, through a common
law writ, to escape the consequences of his defeat. On the whole,
they said, they believed that the reason for prohibitions had
'departed with the annexation of the Spiritual Headship to the
Crown, for the ecclesiastical courts were now as much the Queen's
as were the common law courts; indeed, they could see no reason
(why they might not as equitably prohibit the common law courts
(as suffer the latter to restrict their jurisdiction. All such writs
ought to issue from the Chancery, because, as matters stood, the
common law courts were judges in their own case, a position
neither honourable nor justifiable. Dignified and moderate as these
Articles were, they decided nothing, contributed nothing to the
settling of the controversy, and are of value simply as marking
the stage reached at that precise moment.

The progress of the quarrel toward an issue1 and toward the
breaking point becomes at once apparent when we examine the
Articuli Cleri of 1605, as Coke dubbed the Articles submitted to
the Privy Council in October of that year by Bancroft, in the name
of the clergy of the whole realm.2 The immediate occasion for the
drafting of this document seems to have been a verbal altercation
in the Privy Council between him and the judges. The Arch-

i At the Bishops ' Conferences in 2 ' ' Certaine Articles of abuses
February 1603-4 with the Privy Coun- which are destined to be reformed in
cil, many were of the opinion that granting of prohibitions. Commonly
"all causes are of ecclesiasticall cog- called Articuli Cleri." (1605) Cotton
nizance which are not to be reformed MSS. Cleopatra, F, II, f. 319; Raw-
by any original writt at the comon linson MSS., B. 202, f. 112; All Souls
lawe " Additional MSS. 28571, f. College, Oxon., 221, f. 39; Harleian
387. MSS. 1299, f. 95, b. ff; copy of the

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

bishop charged them with abuses in the granting of prohibitions,
and the judges present at once offered to answer his accusation in
full whenever it should be formally presented to them.1 The
Articuli Cleri which Bancroft at once prepared and presented, show
how clearly the crisis was approaching. The judges replied in the
following spring.2 Where, in 1598, the bishops had been content
with requesting some changes in a few points of questionable
legality, they now declared that the whole practice of prohibitions
was a great abuse, tending to the utter overthrow of the ecclesias
tical jurisdiction. Hitherto satisfied to appeal to the judges' own
sense of justice and equity, the clergy had now lost all confidence
in their probity and turned at once to the Privy Council not only
to complain, but to demand, as a matter of law and justice, that
these abuses be reformed. All idea of gaining anything by com
promise or moderation had departed and the grievances of the
Church were stated in no uncertain terms.

Bancroft's first care was to place the subject upon a new footing.
The main contention of the judges had been, and continued to be,
that it was their prerogative, and theirs alone, to decide when, how,
and in what cases, prohibitions or other legal writs should issue ; —
a dictum which, as the bishops had already pointed out in 1598,
simply made them judges of their own case. As had also been
said, it decided the case against the Church, for it was not to be
expected that they would convict themselves of illegal proceedings.
If neither set of judges was to decide the matter, and it was clearly
not equitable that either should, there was but one equitable course,
and the clergy espoused it, not perhaps because it was equitable,
but because they had no other choice. "His Majesty hath power,"
they declared, "to reform abuses in prohibitions," and "to judge
what is amiss in either of his said jurisdictions. ' ' Bancroft did not
in the least contemplate the King's deciding actual cases of law,
but contended merely that, where a judicial deadlock was already

heads of these only, Cotton, Cleopatra. sire may be cleared. " Is it not pos-

F, I, f. 114. See also Coke's Insti- sible to infer from these words that

tutes, II, 601; Cardwell, Documen- the judges began the attack?
tary Annals, II, 116; Wilkins, Con- 2 The Judges' Answers to the Ar-

cilia. IV, 417; Howell, State Trials. ticuli Cleri. Copied in after each ar-

i Articuli Cleri, art. I. ' ' This is tide to which it is an answer. Coke 's

therefore the first point upon occa- Institutes, II, 601 ; in MSS. Harleian

sion lately offered before your lord- MSS., 827, f. 2; Holkham MSS. 677,

ships by some of the judges, we de- f. 334. (Coke's copy.)

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in existence, the King, as the fountain of justice, ought to settle
the dispute by declaring some working compromise.1 Neverthe
less, whatever the equity of the situation was, the judges of the
common law were certainly right in replying that for several
generations, at the least, the Sovereign had not ordinarily decided
what was or was not the proper technical method of issuing writs,
and they were right in declaring that the processes of the law
were not to be altered by informal agreement. In fact, all the
traditions of the common law were against any such view as Ban
croft put forward, and indeed, it was not his proposal to refer the
question to the King which most antagonised the judges, but his
attitude toward the law as something which could and ought to be
reformed.

To the common lawyer of that day, the law was law, and was to
be denned by the judges of the law; what they delivered as law,
was law because they delivered it, and, however inexpedient or
unjust it might be, if such was their decision, the dispute was at an
end. Nor was it in the least the function of the judge to make law :
he had only the right to declare authoritatively what the law was.
His function was declaratory The whole issue was a question of
fact, not of expediency; of v^at was, not of what ought to be law;
a question to be decided by the precedents of the common law
courts as understood by their judges, and not by opinions of eccle
siastics based very likely on the hardship the law caused the clergy
or the desirability of changing it. Whatever the law was, King,
bishops, and judges combined, had no right to alter it, and certainly
least of all had the Archbishop the privilege of insinuating that the
judges were either acting illegally or did not themselves know
what the law was.

While the judges felt sure that they had the law on their side,
they were quite ready to claim that equity and expediency were

i " The clergy well hoped, that they held to have had sufficient authority
had taken a good course in seeking in himself, with the assistance of his
some redress at his majesty's hands council, to judge what is amiss i
concerning sundry abuses offered to either of his said jurisdictions, and
his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, by the to have reformed the same accord-
over frequent and undue granting of ingly; otherwise a wrong course
prohibitions; for both they and we taken by us, if nothing may be re-
supposed (all jurisdiction both ec- formed, that is now complained of.
clesiastical and temporal being an- but what the temporal judges shal
nexed to the imperial crown of this of themselves willingly yield unto,
realm) that his highness had been (Articuli Cleri, art, i.)

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

also in their favour. In fact, both parties put forward with some
keenness their desire to succour the oppressed. The clergy com
plained of those ' ' contentious persons, as do wittingly and willingly
upon false and frivolous suggestions to the delay of justice, vexation
of the subjects, and great scandal of ecclesiastical jurisdictions,
daily procure, without fear either of God or men, such undue pro
hibitions, as we have heretofore mentioned." (art xxv.) The judges
retorted that "now many turbulant ministers do infinitely vex their
parishioners for such kinds of tithes as they never had, whereby
many parishes have been much impoverished. . . . Where is the fault
but in the minister that gave occasion?" "Now they grow so
troublesome to their neighbours as were it not for the prohibition
(as may appear by the Presidents before remembered) they would
soone overthrow all prescriptions and compositions that are for
tithes, which doth and would breed such a generall garboile amongst
the people, as were to be pitied and not to be permitted." (art. xv.)
Turning to the more specific complaints, the clergy found fault
with the old form of prohibition because it declared that the ecclesi
astical courts were not the King's courts and that the ecclesiastical
law was not the law of the land (art. ii) j1 and with the new form
of consultation because in it no definite cause for granting the
prohibition was expressed,2 ' ' by means whereof the temporal judges
leave themselves at liberty without prejudice," to grant another
prohibition on that selfsame matter on which they have just issued
a consultation.3 The judges replied, that the old form, having
always existed, could only be changed by Act of Parliament, and,
as for the new form, it had been adopted ' ' for brevity 's sake ' ' and

1 This was good English law of mitted to him any good reason for
the days when the ecclesiastical courts granting the writ, but once he had
still "spake Eomish" and were a the whole case before him, when the
part of the papal system. Nor did prohibition was argued, he would soon
the bishops deny this: they did in- be able to turn the many-sidedness of
sist that there was neither rhyme nor the issue to account and retain the
reason for declaring that it was still case to the increase of his own juris-
'aw- diction, to the detriment of his ene-

2 They ' ' do only tell us that they mies, and to the benefit of his own
grant their consultations, certis de pocket from the fees that accrued,
causis ipsos apud Westm. moventibus, "I feare mee as emulation betweene
not expressing the same particularly the two Lawes in the beginning
according to their ancient prece- brought in these multitudes of Pro-
dents. ' ' Art. vii. hibitions, either against or beside law,

3 The real objection of the civil- so the gaine they bring unto the
ians was that the judge might not be Temporall Courts mnintaineth them."
able to see in the information sub- (Ridley, View, 127 )

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could not be altered to suit the whim of the Court of Arches. Yet,
in all strictness of law and justice, if the old form could be altered
or supplanted only by Parliament, how had the judges been able
on their own authority to employ another "for brevity's sake?"
Was the consultation of less importance than the prohibition and
less bound by precedent? And if they could formulate a new writ
for any purpose, could they not, if they wished, make it conform
to the reasonable desires of the ecclesiastical judges, for few will
deny that the latter ought to be informed in the writ in what cases
they were to be allowed to proceed?

The clergy next complained (art. iv) of the excessive number of
prohibitions which the common law judges had issued during the
last years of Elizabeth's reign and more particularly since the
accession of James. "The humour of the time is grown to be too
eager against all ecclesiastical jurisdiction," they declared, for
prohibitions had been issued "in all causes almost of ecclesiastical
cognisance." 1 During the reign of the late Queen, 488 prohibitions
had been granted against the Court of Arches alone, and since her
death, 82 to the same court, of which number, they begged the
judges to show them one-twentieth which had been properly granted
and upheld in a cause which was not by strict law of purely
ecclesiastical cognisance. Without attempting to reply, the judges
declared that "upon these generalities nothing but clamour can be
concluded," and desired particulars to which some fitting answer
could be given. They said, however, that the ecclesiastical estimate
of the number of prohibitions was wrong, for since the accession
of James, only 251 prohibitions issued from the King's Bench to
all the ecclesiastical courts, of which 149 concerned the modus
decimandi, and that the Common Pleas had granted in all, 62, of
which 31 were upon the modus decimandi. Given the facts as the
judges admitted them to be, and the situation was bad enough from
Bancroft's point of view. The number of prohibitions was, in
itself, however, only a minor grievance, for the real clerical objec
tion was, that, of this considerable total, the majority were prohi
bitions on one and the same suit from several courts, or several

i ' ' The Prohibitions of fact or of clog and incumber it with some Pro-
men, are both infinite and odions for hibition and the matter they containe
that there is, well nigh, no matter is (for the most part) absurd and
either Civile or ecclesiastical!, be it frivolous." Kidley, View, 127.
ever so cleer or absolute, but they

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

from one court, or the multiplication of prohibitions of the same
general character as those on which consultations had already been
granted in other suits, (arts, v and vi.) The clergy contended that
the judges ought not to issue writs which they themselves knew
could not be sustained. Nor should they countenance requests from
defeated suitors in the ecclesiastical courts who had allowed the
case to proceed to sentence : ' ' yea after sentence, yea after two or
three sentences given, and after the execution of the said sentence
or sentences, and when the party for his long continued disobe
dience is laid in prison." (art. iii) Furthermore, declared the
aggrieved clerics, the plaintiff in Court Christian, the man who
had voluntarily begun his suit there after consideration of the
legal possibilities, ought not to be allowed to prohibit his own case,
when the tide began to turn in favour of his opponent, (art. x) To
all these gravamina the judges had one reply : ' ' Prohibitions are not
of favor but of justice to be granted, ' ' and if a man has any colour
of right to such a writ, it must receive recognition whether he is the
plaintiff or defendant, whether he appears before or after sentence
at ecclesiastical law, and even when the common law judge himself
knows that he cannot sustain the writ on its return.

"A great abuse and one of the chief grounds of the most of the
former abuses," continued Bancroft, lay in the practice of the
common law courts in granting prohibitions without sight of the
libel of the ecclesiastical court, "yea sometimes before the libel be
there exhibited." (art. xi.) In other words, the judges had accepted
the bald statement of a lawyer, that in this case the ecclesiastical
courts had exceeded their jurisdiction, and did not ask for even
such elementary proof as could be supplied by the sight of the libel
or declaration upon which the ecclesiastical court was proceeding,
a method of action characterised in legal phrase as the issuing of
prohibitions upon "surmise."1 The clergy wished no such writs

1 Properly, prohibitions were issued with the attorneys, and because their

only on "suggestion," that is to say, vagueness made them a peculiarly

by demonstration that the ecclesiasti- useful offensive weapon in the attack

cal judge was actually trying a tern- on the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Dr.

poral matter, an end usually accom- Gardiner (History of England, II,

plished by submitting copies of the 36) seems to have lost sight of the

libel. While these prohibitions issued technical meaning of the prohibition

on ' ' surmise ' ' without proof of any on surmise and founds on this article

sort were not numerous, they were an opinion that Bancroft wished to

growing in number because the ease have all prohibitions issued by the

of obtaining them made them popular Chancery, because the chancellor as a

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granted at all, but Bancroft proposed, as a compromise, that in
future all prohibitions upon surmise should issue solely out of the
Chancery, a scheme which would at any rate prevent the multipli
cation of such writs in one and the same suit.

This was by far the most difficult point for decision which was
presented in the Articuli Cleri of 1605, because the right and
wrong was clear, but the law of the matter was in considerable con
fusion. The Act of 2 and 3 Edward VI, c. xiii, section 14
explicitly ordered the presentation of the libel to every judge of
whom a prohibition was asked, but the common law judges declared
this clause was annulled by the succeeding clause which stated that
neither the Act, nor anything contained in it, should extend to give
the ecclesiastical courts jurisdiction over any matter, cause, or
thing, repugnant to previous statutes, nor "yet hold Plea in any
matter whereof the King's Court of Right ought to have Jurisdic
tion." Prohibitions were not mentioned, for the clause concerned
jurisdiction and not the manner in which it was to be made
effective, and the statute furthermore applied only to tithe cases;
but the judges assumed that they had a right to hold plea of the
subject matter, then applied the general proviso saving their juris
diction, and thus concluded that they were not compelled to demand
a sight of the libel.1 They also found some cases in the Year Books
and Abridgements2 which they asserted were directly in point, but
which the clerics openly flouted, retorting that they were not
decisions at all but the comments of some serjeant. And that, even
if they were valid, they had been annulled by this statute, which
was many years later in date. Whether that was true or not. there
was neither reason nor justice in issuing a prohibition to the eccle
siastical judge for trying the right of tithe pigeons when the case
before him really concerned the tithes of wool and lambs. As for
the prohibitions, which declared that the ecclesiastical courts would
not countenance the plea of a modus decimandi, these simply added

state official was more amenable to * Yet there was clear precedent in

political influence than were the Brook's Abridgement for 31 Henry

judges. Bacon, in later years, did VT against this contention of the

advocate such an expedient from just judges and in favor of Bancroft's

such reasons, but there is no evidence point; Edition 1573, II, f. 165 b.

to show that Bancroft ever enter- No. 20; another case, No. 26, 13

tained the idea, and certainly the Ar- Henry VII.

ticuli Cleri, art. xiv, will not bear this 2 For instance, Brook's Abridge-

construction without unwarrantable ment, II, f. 165 b, No. 17, for 31

straining. Henry VIII.

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

insult to injury, complained Bancroft, for the supposition was
completely false ;x and rested upon ' ' a quirk and false supposition in
Edward Fourth his time, made by some Serjeants." (art. xv.)
Every modus decimandi, which was properly proved, received as
much deference in the ecclesiastical court as it could at common
law. Closely akin to this grievance, was the granting of prohibi
tions on the surmise that the case at ecclesiastical law was neither
matrimonial nor testamentary, (art. xiii) an excellent point from
the common law view, because the old precedents, which had come
down from the Middle Ages, were unanimous that cases of real
property, which were neither matrimonial nor testamentary,
belonged to the common law courts. Of the prima facie justice of
the prohibition, upon such a suggestion or surmise, there could be
no doubt; the difficulty now arose because the judges no longer
insisted that the case should be one of real property, but, arguing
that the modus decimandi or right of tithes concerned the increment
from land and was neither matrimonial nor testamentary, readily
concluded that it was to be heard solely at common law. In a simi
lar fashion, complained the clergy, by proper quibbles even heresy
and schism, and all matters of ecclesiastical discipline, might be
made subjects of temporal jurisdiction.

From all these abuses, the clerics drew the conclusion that the
judges were determined to interfere with their courts whatever
the law and justice of the question might be, and they regarded as
strong corroborative evidence the prohibitions granted upon ' ' frivo
lous suggestions." "Upon a suit of tithes brought by a minister
against his parishioner a prohibition flieth out upon suggestion

1 The common law judges asserted Probably in many instances, the com-

again and again that the ecclesiasti- mon law asseveration was true, that

cal judges would not receive any plea the ecclesiastical courts refused to

of a ^ modus decimandi however sub- accept as valid and conclusive a mo-

stantiated. Coke took his stand upon dus decimandi which the common law

this point in 1609. See also 2 Re- courts thought valid and conclusive.

ports, 43, 44 b; and Kidley's Viewe In perhaps an equal number of in-

of the Civile and Ecclesiasticall Law, stances, the ecclesiastical holding was

180; and other tracts. The Court of true, though a common lawyer would

King's Bench in Tryor v. Bestney point out that the common law judges

Betts, (36 Eliz.) Croke, I. 317 and after all simply refused to allow the

318, said "the Spiritual court will defendant on a prohibition to traverse

not allow a plea of modus decimandi the declaration as something prima

but only of payment of tithes in kind facie wrong. It is impossible con-

. . . and therefore the common law clusively to demonstrate by any evi-

shall aid him." The ecclesiastical dence now accessible, where lay the

judges and lawyers denied it stoutly. preponderance.

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that in regard of a special receipt, called a cup of buttered beer,
made by the great skill of the said parishioner, to cure a grievous
disease called a cold, which sorely troubled the said minister, all
his tithes were discharged." (art. ix.)

The sum and substance of the Articuli Cleri and of the judges'
answers may be given in three words, complaint and denial, and for
the time, the dispute — if such it deserved to be called, where neither
side vouchsafed to argue — came to no conclusion at all. There is
plenty of evidence, it must be confessed, to prove that the con
tentions of the clergy were in the main true, and that there were
many abuses in the manner in which the judges exercised their
legal authority. The champions of the common law seemed, more
over, very ready to ride rough-shod over the manifest intention
of the Edwardian statutes for the payment of tithes, which stated
that they had been passed in order to give laymen rights at
ecclesiastical law, because they were already without remedy at
common law for the unlawful detention of such dues, and as laymen
could not sue in the ecclesiastical courts. To assert, then, as the
judges did, that the common law, independent of the statutes,
allowed laymen to sue at common law in cases of tithes in prefer
ence to suing at ecclesiastical law, was going pretty far. Was no
deference due to a plain statutory declaration of what Parliament
understood the law to be? Was no importance to be attached to
the customary procedure of the ecclesiastical courts ? Were ecclesi
astical precedents of no validity at all in deciding a dispute between
the two jurisdictions?

Yet, on the whole, there had been very little said in either the
complaint or the answer about what the law was: each assumed
that the law was in itself equitable and just, although it began to
be evident that the disputants by no means agreed, as to where that
law was to be found. The Churchmen had not denied that the
judges might legally issue prohibitions, and the judges had con
ceded tacitly that there was a limit to their interference with the
ecclesiastical courts. The whole contention on the one side had
been that the judges had not observed the forms and spirit of
their own law, and on the other, that the technicalities of common
law procedure might work evil in some instances but that there
could be no question of the legality of those forms nor of the
essential consonance of their administration with truth and justice.

THE ARTICULI CLERI, 1605

The judges in fact did not answer at all the point raised by
Bancroft. They assumed that the law and their declarations and
practices were one and the same, but as yet they did not say so.

As Bancroft had read the grievances of the clergy before the
Privy Council in the Presence Chamber at Whitehall, no doubt the
Answer of the Judges was presented in the spring of 1606 in no
less dignified a fashion. Then came conferences of both clergy and
judges with the Council, and, doubtless, some acrimonious speeches
passed between the Archbishop and the Chief Justice, which would
be interesting reading if we had them. Convocation, then in
session, presented to the King a petition in which they complained
that ''they haue bene very much of late years defrauded of their
Tithes, and debarred from obteyning their right due unto them
by the ecclesiasticall Lawes of the Church through Prohibitions
procured by those which wronge them out of your Majesty's
Temporall Courtes to your Suppliantes great hindrance molestacon
and utter impoverishinge in time if remedy bee not provided,
besides the stoppinge of Justice, occasion of periury, and further
wronge and overthrowe of your Ecclesiastical Jurisdiccon as though
it were an unjust usurpacon of forraigne power against your
Majesty and Crowne, and not the due execucon of your Majesty's
owne rightfull power and iust Jurisdiccon in Causes Ecclesias
ticall."1

A temporary truce was patched up, which the King as well as
Salisbury believed at the time, would be more than ephemeral in
its results. "I am commanded expressly by his Majesty to signifie
to your lo : " wrote Secretary Lake to Salisbury, ' ' how much he is
pleased with the discourse your lo : hath written of the conferences,
which though he acknowledge to have been very painfull to your lo :
after so many laborious sittings and other dispatches of his
affaires . . . His Majesty seemeth to hop by the successe of that
dayes worke that all the controuersies about these Church courtes
will ether dye or be weakly pursued. ' ' 2

About a month later, James elevated to the Chief Justiceship of
the Common Pleas, a man who was prepared to devote the powers
of a mighty intellect, the diligence of an inexhaustible energy, the
resources of a legal acumen which has probably never been rivalled

i TTarleian MSS. 827, f. 1 b.

= Hatfield MSS. 116, f. 34. May 6, 1606. Holograph.

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in England, and the learning acquired by years of delving in the
authorities of the law, to demonstrating and enforcing the common
law contentions, which the King believed to have been set so
completely at rest. Coke very soon infused into the common
lawyers that same feeling of institutional strength and that same
belief that all must stand together for the good of the law as an
institution, which Bancroft had so successfully roused in the clergy.
The renewal of the strife was, however, afar off, and we must
leave the Archbishop and the Chief Justice planning their cam
paigns, to follow the fortunes of the English Catholics and their
attempts at organisation.

CHAPTER III

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT AND THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

The death of Elizabeth had, for the time being, put an end to the
eagerness of the secular priests to come to terms with Bancroft, and
had even caused them to lay aside their grievances against the
Jesuits and to draw closer to the Society than they had for fifteen
years. In truth, while the two had been seriously estranged because
of a difference of opinion as to which was the best method of pro
moting the welfare of the Catholic faith in England — a secret un
derstanding with the State or an aggressive proselytism supported
at the right moment by a foreign army — neither was so blinded
as to lose sight of the long-cherished hope that the son of Mary
Stuart would reinstate Catholicism. Neither was foolish enough
to sacrifice that hope in order to dispute which should control the
organisation under the new Catholic king, and each saw that, when
something had actually been accomplished, there would be time
enough to wrangle over the leadership. Much to Bancroft's cha
grin, then, the secular leaders met the Archpriest and the leading
Jesuits in London some time in April, 1603, to concert measures
' ' for restoring religion or obtaining toleration. ' ' * After a month
of discussion, the seculars and their titular head came to a definite
agreement at a meeting of May 13, to bury all past quarrels. They
drew up and signed a memorandum to the effect that "there shal
be no strangeness amongest us nor exception taken one against the
other but that we live in union and mutuall love and frendly of
fices one towardes the other as Catholique priestes ought, to be as
thoughe the Controuersy neuer had bene. That the Popes last briefe

i Watson's Examination, August effect that Watson was set on by
18, 1603. Tierney's Dodd's Church Cecil and Bancroft "to betray all
History of England from the Com- Catholics and bring them within com
mencement of the Wth Century to pass of treason. ' ' Watson 's Conf es-
the Revolution of 1688, with notes, sion, (Tierney. IV, xxxiii). This is
additions and a Continuation. (Lon- interesting in view of Fr. Gerard 's
don, 1841) (Cited in these volumes similar charge against them in regard
as "Tierney.") IV, xxiv, note. Jes- to the Gunpowder Plot,
uit reports were also spread to the

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was published before Christmas and that all persons by notice there
of are bounde to the obedience of the same and that our Archpriest
desirethe nothinge more than that the pointes therin contained
may be putt in execution. Whosoeuer shall thinke himselfe any
way aggrieued by worde or writinge he is to make relation thereof
either to the Archpriest or to any of the Assistantes or other law
fully appointed superior, and without spreddinge the difference
amonge the Laitie and that we all indevour to the uttermost of
our power to defende and maintain one the others creditt and
reputation. That we all agree in one uniforme Course to move His
Majestie to mitigation or release of our miseries and that euery one
deale with his Charge and acquaintance to concurr to the further-
aunce of the same."1

The Bye Plot disturbed these amicable relations but little, for
all sections of the Catholic clergy tried to betray Watson, and
chance alone gave the seculars the credit of communicating the
first definite information. Indeed, so far had the reconciliation
progressed by the following August that Bancroft feared the secu
lars would forsake him altogether and divulge his secrets.2 Never
theless, he had sufficient faith in their previous protestations to wait,
and he steadfastly refused to execute the proclamation of November,
1602, declaring that he was utterly unwilling to "drive men to im
patience." This stand seems to have occasioned some difference
of opinion between him and Whitgift, and perhaps caused Cecil
publicly to deny that the State would support so lenient a course.3

i"M° that the E. Archpriest and Eichard what Cecil gave out of the
we whose names are subscribed mett Bishop of London his words and in-
together and agreede upon the pointes tention against Jesuits,
ensuinge " & P. Dom. Jac. I, Vol. assured the Bishop demeth all, say-
1 no 80, May 13, 1603. ing that however those courses were

2 Bancroft to Cecil, Hatfield MSS. approved in Walsmgham his time.

101 f 108 Holograph. August 9, and now he disliked them altogether,

1603 ' "Now it seemeth ye priests viz: to drive men to impatience and

will seek favor amongst others; and to draw men to danger; and being

leave both your Lo: and me: whereby asked what he would do by virtue of

(as yow knowe) we shal be much the proclamation, he said 1

^ . , , principally procured by the late Arch-

3 -'Since the time limited in the bishop of Canterbury, who should

late proclamation expired, little hath have provided that it might have

been yet done against priests or Pap- executed, now he being dead, it was

ists, and T think very few or none yet uncertain what courses^ thoroin

departed upon the same, nor any should be taken " Father Rivers to

certainty is yet known when the Cornelio, April 4, 1604. Foley, Xe-

priests in prison shall be sent to cords, I, 60-61.
exile You heard by your Brother

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

James, moreover, was a new element in the situation and puzzled
all parties for a year or more. According to the rumours widely
spread by the priests, he had agreed, while still King of Scotland,
to tolerate the Catholics if he succeeded to the English throne, but,
in May, 1603, orders had gone forth to collect the recusancy fines.
Strangely enough, the Bye Plot caused no sudden severity in the
execution of the law, and scarcely a week after its discovery, before
the examination of the captives was fairly begun, the King received
a deputation of prominent Catholic gentry with unusual fervour,
and, according to report, agreed to remit the penal laws.1 During
the summer, petitions were presented, tracts printed, and signatures
openly procured to the ' * Catholiques Supplication." No wonder
the Catholic hopes were high and that the underhand negotiations
with the Bishop of London languished. Then the King's policy
(it is sufficiently clear that Bancroft or Cecil had little or nothing
to do with it) veered round to severity, only to return to the idea
of clemency, and so vacillated back and forth that by summer of
1605 no one knew what to expect. During the fall of 1603 and most
of the year 1604, James had also been negotiating with the Pope's
nuncio in Flanders, and penned ambiguous phrases which might
be construed to mean that he was willing to recognise the Pope as
his spiritual head and the Roman Catholic Church as his mother.3

1 Tierney, IV, 37, note. "A Peti- 3 There is a great deal of material
tion Apologetical " printed at Douay on this interesting topic, some of
in 1604 claims in its preface to be which does not seem to have been
the one which the gentry presented fully utilised, but it is not possible to
James in July 1603. The preface treat it here. Tn the TTatfield MSS.
gives this version of James's promises. 101, f. 142, is the original of the let-
The exemption from fines "the said ter of Innocent, Bishop of Camerin to
Lords signified that they shold so James, and in Hatfield MSS. 112, f.
long enjoy as they kept themselues 150 (wrongly cited by Gardiner, His-
upright in all ciuill and true carry- tory, I, 141^ as vol. 120, f. 150) is
age towardes your Majesty and the the draft of a reply; while another
State without contempt; whereunto copy docketed "about the end of
reply was made, that recusancy might October, 1605," (Dr. Gardiner placed
be held for an acte of contempt: the paper under 1603) is in Hatfield
It was answered by the Lordes of the MSS. 134, f. 74. See also Hatfield
Counsel!, that your majesty would not MSS. 105, f. 3; 107, f. 148; and a
accompt recusancy for a contempt." correspondence of Salisbury and Ed-

2 Among others was printed "The monds as late as October, 1605, in
Coppie of the Banished Priestes Let- Stowe MSS., 168.

ter to the Lords of his Maiesties Most Parsons wrote a flowery letter of

Honourable Priuy Council, September congratulations to James, October,

24, 1604. On the condition of secu- 1603, (Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, A,

lars at this moment see Stonyhurst III, no. 36). The cause of this at-

MSS. Anglia A, VI, no. 50. October tempt to negotiate seems to have been

8, 1603, newsletter. Garnet's opinion that James would

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

The Pope was delighted and soon spread a report through Europe
that the King of England had asked for instruction and would
shortly announce his conversion after the notable example of Henry
IV of France. At this, James was wroth and neglected to answer
the effusive epistles smuggled across the Channel.

Nevertheless, the Catholic laity, aside from such extremists as
Catesby and Winter, was, on the whole, satisfied. Whatever James
said, they knew well that there had rarely been a year, since the
accession of Elizabeth, when so few men had been detained in
prison, when so few fines had been collected, (many, however, were
imposed,) and when so little attempt had been made to check the
performance of the ordinary rites of their religion.1 At various
times, the judges or bishops 2 had indeed been ordered to inquire
diligently into the number of recusants, and to return the number
indicted, but, as comparatively few convictions had resulted, the
whole preceding was regarded more as a census of recusants than
as a really vigorous attempt to enforce the law. The degree of en-
receive a nuncio very favourably.
His holograph letter to Parsons of
April 16, 1603, is in Stonyhurst MSS.
Anglia, A, III, no. 32. In the cor
respondence of De Beaumont, the
French Ambassador to England, with
de Bethune, the French Ambassador
at Eome, may be found the rumours
and loose talk picked up at Paul's
and in the royal ante-chamber. Bib-
lioteque Nationale (Paris M. 3490.)
The English Ambassador at Paris
seems to have made representations,
in December, 1603, to Henry IV, to
the effect that the Jesuits in England
were supported by money and aid
from France, which he ought not to
permit. The copy of the memoir is
in Cotton MSS. ' Caligula, E. X, f.
227, 330. December 9 and December
29, 1603. On this whole topic of the
papal relations with James I, see an
interesting book, A. O. Meyer, Clem
ent VIII und Jacob von England.

i The Venetian Ambassador wrote
that Cecil told him: "the King's
excessive clemency has ended in this,
that priests go openly about the
country, the city and private houses,
saying mass. ' ' Calendar, X, No. 353.
Bancroft stated in an official letter
to the bishops of March 12, 1604-5,

"it is much marvayled that so many
priestes and Jesuites roame about in
our dioceseee without any impeach
ment or regarde allmost had of them:
wee ourselves seldome or never seek-
inge after them." S. P. Dom. Jac.
I, XIII, no. 25. The French Ambas
sador, wrote Eivers to Parsons, in
April, 1604, (Foley, Eecords, I, 60)
"is an earnest suitor to the King in
the behalf of the Catholics." He
1 ' seemed to retain the patronage of
the appellants (as at Eome in 1602)
whose books, petitions and memorials,
he exhibiteth to his Majesty." James
himself wrote in his Apology for the
Oath of Allegiance, (Works, 1616, p.
253, 254). "How free and contin-
uall accesse had all rancks and de
grees of Papists in my court and
company? And aboue all, how frank
ly and freely did I free Eecusants of
their ordinarie paiments? Besides,
it is euident what strait order was
giuen out of my owne mouth to the
ludges, to spare the execution of all
Priests. ... It can neuer bee
prooued, that any were or are put to
death since I came to the Crowne for
cause of Conscience."

2 Bancroft 's orders to the bishops
concerning recusants, March 12, 1604-

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

f orcement is an academic question, whose solution, one way or the
other, will not alter the fact, that the penal laws hampered Catholic
movements very little in the early years of the reign of James I.
Both clergy and laity proceeded with their plots and plans, their
meetings and discussions, their appeals to Eome and their intestinal
quarrels, precisely as if no laws existed at all. After all, the sub
stance of toleration was more valuable than the name. So much the
Catholics had; what they demanded was the certainty of its con
tinuance: they wished to be freed from the suspense of living in
danger of Tyburn, the Assizes, and pursuivants. The issue, too,
was not of ecclesiastical significance. The bishops had little to do
with the Catholics and what little they did was rather the collec
tion of information through the visitatorial system than the enforce
ment of the laws.1 So far as Bancroft was connected at all with the
penal laws, it was as a great officer of state, as Privy Councillor,
rather than as Archbishop. These questions, in fact, concerned
the relation of the Catholics to the State, not the Church : they were
political, not ecclesiastical, issues.

The really vital issue was the controlling of this illegal organisa
tion of Catholic priests which force had not suppressed. Here no
material change had taken place since the accession of James, be
cause the situation was so complicated that any move was fraught
with extreme peril. No one was willing to take any decisive step
until something should happen to render action imperative. The
truth was that no one dared to trust the promises and protesta
tions of any one else. Bancroft had little faith in the seculars and
none at all in the Jesuits : Bluet and Colleton distrusted Blackwell
and all who supported him, who naturally reciprocated the feeling :
Garnet, Gerard, and Holtby, the Jesuits, were afraid to communi
cate with the seculars for fear that they would betray them to
Bancroft. Even among nominal friends, no one knew whom to
trust: the seculars and Jesuits suspected that many of their ad
herents were really in the other's pay; neither knew how many

5. S. P. Dom. Jac. I, XIII, no. 25. have been described and reprinted

Printed in Wilkins, Concilia, IV, 410, many times.

with modernised spelling and a few 1 This opinion is derived from a

minor errors. Also on the judges see careful study of the material in the

Winwood's Memorials, II, 77, June "Record Office and more particularly

21, 1605. The judges' returns of the from the Visitation Records, where

number of recusants in 1604 are in there is very little to show that the

Tierney, TV, xciii. The proclama- bishops ever did anything at all.
tions, the statutes of 1604, etc., etc.,

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

there were also in the pay of the State ; Bancroft was certain that
there were spies in his own retinue and in the Privy Council office.1
Each was waiting for some turn of the tide, some change in the
political situation that would give them a really good chance of
victory.

Bancroft had at last developed a distinct policy. In 1598 he had
hardly dared to hope that he might accomplish more than the sow
ing of such discord in the Catholic ranks that the whole strength
of the party should never be thrown at once in favour of any
scheme or plot against the State. He had then possessed so little
reliable information, and had seen so many possibilities of an ad
verse outcome of any dealing whatever with such men, that he had
been chary of allowing himself to follow any policy except a
thorough-going opportunism. Until he knew that the breach be
tween the Jesuits and the seculars could not be healed, until the
loyalty of the latter to the Crown had been more thoroughly tested,
and until there had appeared some assurance that the Catholic
laity would follow the leadership of the seculars and not of the
Jesuits, every scheme must be intangible and visionary. If the
Catholics could not be frightened into obedience, and were far too
numerous to be constrained by force, could they not be led? Could
they not be controlled by the institution of this extra-legal but
permanent organisation which, the seculars declared, should aim
merely at supplying the spiritual needs of the Catholic laity, whose
services should be secret, whose priests should exhort their followers
to peace and loyalty to the Crown, and whose funds should be ex
pended within the realm solely for the support of this priesthood?
The nucleus for the organisation already existed in the Archpriest
and his assistants, and in the priests stationed in various parts of
England, but it was controlled by the Jesuits. Let the seculars
be put into control of it ; let the connection with Rome be restricted

i He rarely could tell who they T apprehended him and committed
were One man, Rice Griffiths, whom him. Att the assizes came letters
he sent to the Bishop of Hereford, from my Lo: Archbishopp that the
gave out in Herefordshire "that my Judge should forbeare him and trans-
Lord of Canterburie had perswaded mitt him to his handes, and hee is
the King that all those tumults were indeed dismissed upon bond to ap-
nothing but a broken head or two. peare in the King's Bench the next
Of late I have found him," terme, to the greate applause of pap-
wrote the Bishop to Salisbury/ 'plain- istes, to the great appaling of many
lie a perfidious man to the state, a well affected men. Hatneld Mbfe.
sycophant unto mee, and a meere 191, f. 8. August 9, 1605. Original,
agent and spye for the Papistes. . . Signed.

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

to purely spiritual matters and to questions of ordinary administra
tive routine; let the priests take an oath to the Crown, promising
loyalty and the revelation of all plots ; let them be given to under
stand, that, so long as public order was not openly violated, so long
as no open scandal was caused by overt disobedience of the laws,
the ordinary Catholic masses, christenings, and burials would not
be interrupted — and the difficulty would be solved. Bancroft's
own connection with the priests, unofficial and even treasonable
though it was, could be continued by his successor. He would show
the Catholics that they could expect more from their own country
men than from foreign Jesuits. He would show them that, in ex
change for loyalty, essential though not legal toleration would be
accorded them. He would teach the leaders to come secretly to
him and redress their grievances by peaceable conference, where,
by argument, expostulation, and a demonstration of the resources
of the State, violent plots and movements could be effectually pre
vented. Thus sedition would be stopped, compromise invited, and,
best of all, a continual stream of trustworthy information kept
flowing into his hands, which would always give him the key to the
situation. Thus, in time, there would be an English organisation
of the English Catholics, bound to Rome by the slightest of ties,
pledged to political loyalty, and secretly controlled by the Bishop
of London.

The one thing needed was the right opportunity, and suddenly,
from the most unexpected of all sources, it appeared. The Gun
powder Plot, which the conspirators had hoped would establish
Catholicism upon the ruins of Church and State, established the
Catholic Church in England as it stands to-day — an extra-legal
organisation pledged to political loyalty and secretly in close touch
with the English Government.

There is no need to repeat the familiar narrative of the plot or to
more than refer to Dr. Gardiner's masterly refutation of the thesis
of Father Gerard. The truth seems to be that Catesby and Winter,
men of a more or less visionary stamp, conceived the plot from
reasons as mistaken, and as far from being shared by the majority
of Catholics in England, as were those that inspired the unfortunate
Watson. As the Bye Plot had been the work of the over zealous
seculars, so the Gunpowder Plot was contrived by rash Jesuit fol
lowers, and in neither case is it likely that the majority of the Cath-

THE RECONSTRUCTION OP THE ENGLISH CHURCH

olic party knew of the undertaking or approved of it. Abundant
evidence proves that the Pope, the General of the Jesuits, and most
Catholic laymen in England, believed that any plot undertaken
at this precise juncture must injure their cause far more than it
could aid it, and stringent orders had accordingly been forwarded
from Rome to Blackwell, the Archpriest, and to Garnet, the Vice
Prefect of the Jesuits, to check any movement of the kind.1 Some
time in the summer of 1605, if not earlier, Garnet seems to have be
come aware of the existence of a plot of some magnitude, without,
however, learning much about the details of its execution or ascer
taining the names of the conspirators.

He certainly knew of a plot and found himself in an exceedingly
difficult position. Well aware that his superior at Rome, and even
the Pope, had strictly forbidden violence, and that both were con
vinced it would only hurt the general cause, he could not see the
situation in precisely the same light. To his mind, the prospect of
converting England to Catholicism was growing less year by year
and was, even now, so slight that it could be effected only by some
bold and desperate coup d'etat. The scale was turning against the
Jesuits: the Archpriest was no longer technically responsible to
them; a growing party among the secular priests had publicly
repudiated their leadership, and was pledged to a scheme which
seemed to Garnet nothing less than the complete renunciation for
ever of the grand project of converting England to the true faith.
Each year, nay, each month, the laity became more puzzled by the
conflict of opinions among their natural leaders, and were fast
losing their confidence in the Jesuits and in the feasibility and de
sirability of Parsons' far-reaching plans, and were coming to look
with favour on the seculars and to contemplate with satisfaction
the idea of compounding or compromising with the State. Foreign

i Aquaviva, the General of the Jes- (June 15, 1605.) S. P. Dom. Jac.

uits, wrote to Garnet, "We have I, XIV, no. 41. Sir Everard Digby

heard although clearly and very se- wrote to his wife that Garnet said

cretly what I am persuaded your rev- to him in reply as to what the Pope 's

erence knows, that the Catholics are command meant, "that they were not

planning something for liberty. . . . (meaning priests) to undertake or

Our Holy Father orders me to write procure stirs: but yet they would not

to your Reverence in his name that hinder any, neither was it the Pope's

you should use all your influence . . . mind that they should, that should be

that nothing of the sort should be undertaken for the Catholic good. ' *

discussed or carried out." It would Barlow, Gunpowder Treason,

greatly hurt the Catholic cause. Papers, No. 9.

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

powers were no longer eager for strife. Spain had made her peace
with James, and Henry IV of France would certainly not aid in an
armed invasion of England or countenance such a war on the part
of any other power. At this crisis, thought Garnet, so decisive a
blow as the destruction at one stroke, of the King, the bishops, and
the nobility of the realm, would rally the seculars and the lay
Catholics about the Jesuit standard and bring from Spain an army
to assist in the final subjugation of the leaderless and demoralized
Protestants. Such a disaster as the plot, if successful, might rea
sonably entail, had been prayed and hoped for this long time by
Parsons and his colleagues, and here it was ready to do their work
for them without their lifting a finger. For promises of half so
much ' ' good, ' ' Parsons had more than once paid false blackguards
considerable sums of money, and here it was to be had for nothing !
After days and nights of prayer and thought, Garnet concluded
that he could not conscientiously hinder the execution of the plot,
and comforted himself with the assurance that, after all, he knew
nothing about it in detail, and might be excused for discrediting
such reports as he had received.

Some two weeks or more before the day appointed for the meet
ing of Parliament and the springing of the mine, the Government
also knew of the plot, perhaps even before the arrival of the famous
letter to Lord Mounteagle, but was probably not aware of the de
tails.1 Salisbury's and Bancroft's policy toward the Catholics
makes it seem unlikely that either would have fostered the plot on
purpose to rouse the King to greater severity. If such was the ob
ject, the public discovery of the plot, though carried out with all
the dramatic completeness that the most skilful plotter could ask,
failed to produce the effect desired, for, as will presently appear,
the penal laws were not enforced with unusual severity in the fol
lowing year. Moreover, the negotiations of Bancroft with the secu
lars were, at that moment, approaching agreement, and the embroil
ing of Catholic and Protestant through the discovery of such a
plot would have been the best possible means of destroying the con
fidence which it had taken years of tedious negotiations to create.
If Salisbury had a hand in developing the plot at all, as is possible

i See on this point, in addition to Edition). A History of the Gunpow-
Gardiner and Gerard, a volume by der Plot, the Conspiracy and its
Philip Sidney, (London, 1905. 2nd Agents. Ingenious, but uncritical.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CfHURCH

though hardly demonstrable, he very likely did it with the idea of
discrediting the Jesuits with the Catholic laity and seculars in order
to force the latter to accept the terms which Bancroft had been offer
ing them. Probably, the Powder Plot was matured by its origina
tors without direct aid, either from the Jesuits or from the Govern
ment. In due time, Fawkes with his lantern was caught in the
cellar of the Parliament House, and, next morning, the conspirators
were speeding their horses toward Warwickshire.1 Beyond being
present as Privy Councillor at two or three examinations of minor
prisoners during the long investigations that followed the discovery
of the Plot,2 and beyond being appointed custodian of one or two
of the Catholic nobles who were at first suspected of complicity in
it,3 Bancroft took no part in the prosecution of the Gunpowder
traitors. So far as any ecclesiastic was prominent, it was the Bish
op of London, who performed functions very similar to those
Bancroft had performed during the investigation of the Bye
Plot.4 The State had been threatened, and took upon itself the
whole duty of probing the mystery and of meting out justice to the
conspirators.

In fact, the subject of vital importance to the Church was not
the plot itself, but the attitude of the various Catholic factions to
ward it. What all parties had been waiting for — a test case — had
at length arrived and found them all unprepared. The seculars
acted first. Blackwell, the Archpriest, wrote, on November 7, 1605,
a letter r> to the Catholic clergy and laity which must have been the
product of a great deal of discussion and debate between the secular
leaders during those days of terror, — November fifth and sixth. It

1 Bancroft was one of the first to State Papers. Bancroft was present
send Salisbury news that Percy had at an examination of Henry Carew.
been seen near Croydon by the land- (Plot Book; no. 157. December 18,
lord of the Inn. Percy asked him, 1605.) He signed a council letter
"what newes? who answeringe he of November 19, 1605, (Montacute
had heard none: no, quote he, all House MSS. Somerset, Hist. MSS.
London is up in armes. He de- Commissioners Report, I, 58).
manded the way to Kingston : why, 3 The Earl of Northumberland was
said Hoast, you are three miles owt committed to him. (Venetian Calen-
the way thither. No matter quoth he, dar, X, no. 445) and probably others,
the waters are owt in the nearer waye. The Earl was examined at Lambeth.
This was told me within this quarter Gunpowder Plot Book, nos. 112, 113,
of an hower. " Gunpowder Plot 113 A.

Book, no. 7. November 5, 1605. 4 See the Gunpowder Plot Book,

Printed in Notes and Queries, 2nd and Hatfield MSS. 113, f. 39, 61, 66.

Series. TX, 173. 5 Tierney, IV, cxi. Printed from

2 These papers are practically all the original. Copy in S. P. Dom.
in the Gunpowder Plot Books and Jac. I, XVI, no. 21.

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

was a complete renunciation of the Jesuit platform, was issued to
the Catholic party as a whole, and marked a great widening of the
breach that already separated the two factions. Blackwell declared
the plot "intolerable, uncharitable, scandalous, and desperate,"
' ' in the malice whereof had been entrapt our friends, strangers, and
many others our well-willers of all sorts, and that with the pertur
bations and utter ruins of our native country and catholic religion. ' '
No repudiation of the Jesuit cause could well have been stronger
than this declaration that the welfare of the Catholic religion was
bound up in the maintenance of James Stuart on the English
throne. "And here," continued the Archpriest, "to the encrease
of the horror of the matter, there is made a discovery of a catholic
to be privy to this detestable device, ' ' a device contrary to the com
mands of the Pope, to his own orders, and to the opinion of the
councils and the theologians of the catholic faith. ' ' Private violent
attempts cannot be thought of, much less be aided and maintained
by catholics, for it is our parts to make a virtue of necessity, and
to make our gain and encrease by patience and prayer." He ear
nestly declared that if any knowledge of the plot had come to him,
he would have revealed it to the authorities, and closed with an
exhortation to the Catholics, to "fail not in duty towards God and
our King, that our suffering may be our succour, our obedience our
ease, and our quiet behaviour may procure a mitigation of our
troubles." Thus the Gunpowder Plot reconciled the seculars and
their legal head, united them in opposition to the Jesuits, and
caused them to proclaim in clear and unmistakable fashion their
loyalty to their "native country." BlackwelFs letter of November
7, taken in conjunction with his circular of the previous July,1
put into Bancroft's hands exactly what he wanted, — public and
irrefutable evidence of the real attitude of the priests towards the
Government. By the end of November, the plot had been sufficiently
probed to show that the great body of Catholics were guiltless of
complicity, while the reports of their reception of the news satisfied
the Government that they were at heart loyal. The Gunpowder
Plot had thus demonstrated clearly that fundamental fact about
which opinions had so long differed, that the English Catholics
would, in the hour of national calamity, side with the Protestant

i Original is in S. P. Dom. Jac. I, XV, no. 13. July 22, 1605, and is
printed in Tierney, IV, ex.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

sovereign against Catholic powers and forces seeking to injure him.

There was, however, another subject upon which it was even
more essential to have reliable information. What would the
Catholics do when the strain of the crisis and the apprehension of
unheard-of severity had passed? When quiet had been restored,
and the present fear had given place to the old-time confidence in
their numerical strength, which would they follow, — the seculars
or the Jesuits? Bancroft believed, and was, on the whole, right,
that the seculars had gained greatly in strength, but would their
new followers obey them, and above all would their followers, old
and new, obey the Archpriest, if his commands should be disavowed
at Rome? To raise the issue and discover what the laity's attitude
really was, Blackwell was induced to give, on November 28, an
explicit order "to my reverend brethren, the assistants, and other
priests, and to all the Catholics whosoever, within the realm of
England. " l He assured them that violence against the King could
not be other "than a most grievous and heinous offence to God,
scandalous to the world, utterly unlawful in itself, and against God's
express commandment," and instructed his assistants to communi
cate this to the priests who, in their turn, should inform the laity.
That the Pope would approve his course he had no doubt. * ' In the
meantime, by the authority I have, and so much as in me is, I do
humbly entreat, and straightly charge and enjoin, all Catholic per
sons that live under the obedience of mine authority, upon the utter
pain that can or may ensue thereby, that none of them dare or do
presume to attempt any practice or action, tending in any degree
to the hurt or prejudice of the person of our sovereign lord, the
king, the prince, nobility, counsellors, or officers of state ; but to
wards them in their several places and degrees, to behave them
selves as becomes dutiful subjects and religious catholics to their
loyal king, his counsellors and officers, serving in authority under
him."

Time alone could tell whether or not the plan would be successful,
and meanwhile certain "facts" were made public about the Jesuit
attitude toward the plot which greatly increased the Protestant
hatred of the Order, which caused good Catholics to exclaim in
horror at the Fathers' ideas, and which made the Government as de-

3 Printed in Tierney, IV, cxii, from Another copy is in Stowe MSS. 156,
Cotton MSS. Titus, 3, vii, 468. f. 51 b.

100

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

termined to exterminate the Jesuits as it was inclined to tolerate
the seculars. Garnet was publicly accused of complicity in the
plot, and was executed as a traitor.1 Whether or not he was guilty,
is, after all, an academic inquiry, for there can be little question
but that all Protestants and, indeed, a considerable section of the
Catholics, firmly believed that he and the Order had abetted Cates-
by and his friends. That is a fact of the very first historical im
portance, and is as well-established as the existence of the plot it
self. Whoever made the plot, whoever discovered it, whatever its
real purport was, the Jesuits shouldered its odium. The accounts
made public agreed so well with what the Jesuits were supposed to
be ready to do, that all Protestants were more than willing to give
them credence. To strengthen this view, the Jesuit sympathisers
soon fell to lamenting the failure of the plot, and regarded Garnet
as a martyr, not because they believed him innocent of the crime
for which he was executed, but because they did not consider it a
crime at all.2 On the whole, except among the more radical Pro
testants, the Powder Plot discredited the Jesuits, rather than the
English Catholics as a body. The prediction of Father Bluet five
years earlier, that, if the laity could only comprehend the true
nature of the schemes of Robert Parsons, they would never again
trust his followers, seemed in great measure to be fulfilled.

Two powerful factors in the situation were, however, far from
taking this view of the case. The King was really frightened at the
attempt on his life. He was constitutionally timid; when a child
had seen men dirked before his eyes, and had been the object of
more than one conspiracy. All his old fears were renewed three
fold by the magnitude of the peril he had just escaped ; and he was
inclined to anything but leniency towards the miscreants who had
executed the scheme, and to the adherents of the religion they pro
fessed. Then, from the ultra-Protestant and Puritan sections of the
population, rose the strenuous "no Popery" cry of the Armada
time. It was natural enough. The spirit of conformity taught them

1 By far the most important single sive evidence we have of his cogniz-

paper is the ' ' Declaration of Henry ance of the plot at some early date.

Garnet superior of the Jesuites in Eng- Foley has printed in his Eecords

land, all of his own hand, ' ' March from the State Papers a great many

9, 1605-6. Hatfield MSS. 110, f. 30. of the examinations connected with

This has not yet been printed. It Garnet 's .trial.

is endorsed by Cecil : ' ' This was - This is strongly seen in Eudaemon

forbidden by the King to be given Joannes's Besponsio ad Epistolam.

in evidence." Tt is the most conclu- Is: Cas:, 1611.

101

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

that men who disagreed with them fundamentally in religion were
dangerous temporal enemies, and knowing that they themselves
believed it right to compel Catholics to accept their creed at the
point of the sword, they could not believe that the latter would not
be ready to do the same, if opportunity offered. They could only
explain the continued existence of popery by the lack of sufficiently
severe laws. Harsh laws, strictly administered, must be effective,
and with this belief, they continued for thirty years and more, to
clamour for such enforcement, and to pass even more stringent
statutes. Salisbury and Bancroft soon convinced James of the
expediency of the opposite policy, and cared little what the Puritans
thought. In fact, they included their compromise scheme in the
severest penal law yet enacted.

Like all other important settlements of these few years, the agree
ment had its roots in the past. The new oath of allegiance con
tained its chief provisions, so far as they were made public, and,
like the first twelve of the Canons of 1604, and the form of subscrip
tion enjoined by Canon Thirty-Six, was the product of the tentative
forms of submission offered by Catholic priests during the preced
ing ten years and more.1

The central idea of these forms2 was a promise of loyalty to the
Crown without a renunciation of the spiritual authority of the
Pope. According to the early Elizabethan theory, every Catholic,
by his belief in such tenets, had, ipso facto, proclaimed himself dis
loyal, and he could only remove this stigma by taking the oath of
supremacy, in which he explicitly renounced his allegiance to the
Pope. In other words, a man could only become a loyal subject by
abjuring his Catholicism. In reality, the law presupposed a con
dition of affairs which did not exist, for it considered all Catholics
potential traitors, when only a minority of the laity were actually
disloyal.

The real beginning of the oath of allegiance seems to have been

1 Memorial to Bellarmine from Par- procurator! del detto arciprete, nel

sons, May 18, 1606: "Un giura- anno 1602, quando stettero qui in

mento proposto dal parlamento alii Roma, et hebbero promessa che la det-

cattolici d 'Inghilterra . . . che questo ta dottrina sarebba stato eonden-

giuramento pernicioso e stato cavato nata. ' ' Tierney, IV, cxxxv.
dalla dottrina delli preti appellant!, 2 These have been printed in full in

nelli libri lore stampati, e fu presen- the Appendix,
tato al detto santo otficio per duoi

102

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

the form of submission demanded between 1579 and 1583, of the
Jesuits and priests on trial for treason.1 The one offered to Cam
pion states that Elizabeth was lawfully Queen and "I and all other
of the nation of England are her liege subiectes," and owe her al
legiance "notwithstanding any acte or sentence yt any Pope or
other person, Church or bodie hath done or giuen or can doe or
giue. " It declared the Pope's excommunication "false and erro-
nious and of noe validitie ; ' ' and all invasions treason, even if com
manded by the Pope, This form seems to have been used frequently
by the Government in its examination of priests, and naturally
enough became, in later years, the basis of an attempt to reach
some common understanding. But the first public announcement
by the Government of a willingness to accept some test of temporal
loyalty, appears in the form of submission provided in the Act of
1593. 2 Instead of abjuring the realm and going into perpetual ex
ile, the convicted recusant could declare that the Queen's Govern
ment was godly and lawful, and that he repented his breach of the
"godly laws and statutes" of the realm. Then, he testified that "no
other person hath or ought to have any power or authority over her
Majesty," and concluded with a protestation "without any dissimu
lation" or dispensation, of his willingness to obey the laws in the
future and defend them to the uttermost. The Pope was not men
tioned in any way, and no renunciation of his power was
demanded. Compared to the oath of supremacy, this form was
mild and lenient, but, like the more famous oath, it was not to be
taken by every one, and its acceptance did not relieve the individual
recusant from the penalty of other laws. Nevertheless, this was
perhaps the first step toward the provision of some definite test for
those Catholics who were loyal to the Queen but who were willing
to renounce neither their faith nor their country.3

As soon as the split began to appear in the Catholic ranks, between
the Jesuits a*id the seculars, forms of an oath were suggested by
which the good Catholics might offer their temporal allegiance to
the Crown. In 1597, the English refugees on the Continent en-

*A form of submission for the use 1586 between the "peaceable" Cath-

of Catholics in the Inns or Court is olic laity, who merely clung to their

in Additional MSS. 28571, f. 70. old creed, and the "'seditious" laity

35 Elizabeth, c. 1, s. V. who proselytised. But the govern-

3 There is evidence in the Council ment seems, however, to have treated

a distinction obtained as early as Vnst 1593, and probably till 1600

103

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

tertained some ideas of binding themselves by oath to oppose all
violent proceedings under the guise of religion;1 at the examina
tions of Father Walpole in 1598 a series of points were raised
again and again, which we find afterward in the oaths of allegiance
of James's reign;- in 1601, Father Cecil told Mush, "I write to
Mr. Bluet of an oath, which Mr. Hill wold have us sende yow (in
Europe) and tender here to the (English) embassador. " 3 Early
in 1602, Cecil wrote to Watson, that "we have cenceyved here an
oath of obedyence, " 4 while Dr. Ely told Cecil in a letter written in
August, 1602, that the priests and Catholics were ready to agree
to a series of propositions which, in many ways, resemble the
later oaths."1 The idea of an oath of allegiance was then old enough
in 1606, and its form had been developed by the priests and laity
themselves. Bancroft's tact and diplomacy, however, shaped the
final oath, and secured its acceptance by the Government, and, in the
end, by most sections of the Catholic party.

The first definite forms which have come down to us, date from
the return of the Appellants from Rome in the fall and winter of
1602. In November and December, some twenty or more seculars
hotly debated an oath of allegiance, and two of the proposed
forms still survive. In the first, the priests acknowledged Eliza
beth as their lawful sovereign, promised to render her due obedi
ence, and agreed to hold no intelligence with any one whatsoever,
prince or prelate, contrary to her welfare.. Another longer form,
bearing the significant title, "An Oathe of Allegiance," added to
the foregoing a declaration that they recognised Elizabeth as
rightful Queen, any teachings of any foreign power .to the con
trary notwithstanding. If the Pope himself were to deprive her
of her Crown, or absolve her subjects from their allegiance, or in
vade England to reinstate the Catholic religion, they swore that
they would remain true to her and fight in defence of her right.

The language of this oath was explicit and free from ambigu
ous words, and perhaps for that reason, the majority of the Ap
pellants refused to assent to it. After considerable difficulty in
agreeing upon any form at all (for nearly every priest seems to

1 Harry Constable to Essex. Hatfield are also printed at length in Chal-
MSS 175 f 3 Felmiary 28 15% loner's Missionary Priest C8, T.

""" March 10 ' "i597 ' 3 Archpriest Controversy, Cainden

2 These can be followed most easily Society, II, 180.
in A. Jessopp's excellent volume One 4 Ibid. II, 183.
Generation of a Norfolk House. They 5 ibid. nf 195^ ff.

104

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

have preferred his own peculiar scheme), thirteen priests did
sign and present to Bancroft, on January 31, 1602-3, a new oath
of submission. They recognised that the Queen had as much
authority as her predecessors had possessed, and declared them
selves ready to obey her as far as any Catholic priests were bound
to obey their temporal prince in any country of Europe, denning
their obligations, however, as extending merely to civil obedience
to the laws and magistrates in civil causes. That all attempts
to change the religion of England by force were detestable, they
thought no one would deny, and they were lavish in their protes
tations of support in case of foreign invasion, and in their promises
to reveal and resist all conspiracies of which they might learn.
They even went so far as to agree that, if. the Pope excommunicated
all Englishmen who refused to aid an invading army, they would
not consider themselves bound to obey his mandate. Despite the
somewhat doubtful wording of certain clauses, these were very
great concessions, but their final reservation made the whole oath
unacceptable. Inasmuch as the'y had made so full a recognition
of the Queen's claims upon them, they hoped she would allow them
to express in the same public manner, their undiminished loyalty
to the Pope, their spiritual father, and their determination to
lose their lives rather than "infringe the authority of Christe's
catholicke church." Practically this form of January 31 con
tained the sense of the earlier one just referred to, rephrased in
rambling, equivocal sentences, with the addition of a full recogni
tion of the papal authority. Naturally, if such papal claims were
recognised, and, if the Queen possessed no more authority than
her predecessors, whatever the priests might understand that to
be, the subscriber swore obedience to two contradictory things,
if he could be considered as having recognised the Queen's supre
macy at all. Indeed, this oath was not a modification of the oath
of supremacy : it practically annulled it, and also failed to sub
stitute for it any clear and uncompromising agreement of temporal
loyalty.

Then, with the death of the Queen, the Catholic hopes soared
high. Under the new King, there were no more whispers of an
attempt by a foreign prince to change the religion of the kingdom
by force, no more talk of excommunicating all who did not join
the invaders. The deputations of Catholic laity and clergy prof-

105

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

fered humble congratulations on the King's most auspicious acces
sion, made hearty protestations of loyalty, and reiterated their ex
plicit offers to take some "corporal" oath of allegiance. Instead
of the old complaints, we find, in their petitions, dignified and
temperate requests to "license the practice of our religion in pri
vate houses without molestation to priest or lay person for the
same." * Thus the old forms were cast aside and the negotiations
then going on resulted in a definite form of submission of a totally
different stamp. A great deal has been written by both Catholics
and Protestants on the enforcement of the penal laws, and of the
terrorising of priests and the like in 1604, yet we find a party
of priests in prison in July, 1604, complaining that they
should have been released, because they had signed, in the April
preceding, a form in which they, speaking as members of the civil
body politic, recognised James as supreme head of that civil body,
without dependence on any foreign prince, and offered him the
same allegiance as their predecessors gave to former Kings of
England.2 Not a word was said about the Pope, not a word testi
fied to their standing as ecclesiastics condemned to death by the
laws of the realm. In fact, the seculars were by no means cowed
or abused, and expected shortly to carry things with a high hand.
Practically all they offered was the first section of the oath sub
mitted by the thirteen priests, in January, 1602-03.

If this was what the priests offered, what was it the Government
expected? In a paper drawn up by Bancro'ft himself for the ex
amination of priests in the summer of 1604, we find the ideas at
which the Government was now aiming.3 Here, too, we see a recog
nition of the influence of circumstances. In a long and involved
style, full of repetitions and circumlocutions to prevent evasion,
the priest was asked to declare that people erred who thought that
no one could be King of England without the Pope 's consent ; that
a Catholic ought not to obey a King whom the Pope adjudged a
heretic; that, because of the King's heresy, the Pope could dis-

1 Supplication to the King's most evidence of this is, however, of the

excellent Majesty, . . . 1604. The slightest. Foley, Records, I, 61.
substance of the tract has been re- 2 The first few words of the oath

printed in Tierney, TV? Ixxxii. Bivers mean that regular as well as secular

wrote at the time to Parsons that it clergy offered it. Were these Jesuits

was written by Colleton, and it very or Benedictines?

likely was issued with the general a Petyt MSS. 538. 38, f. 186. Hith-

approval of the secular leaders. The erto unpublished.

106

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

charge subjects from their allegiance, or order them to commit
violence. The new note lies in the abjuration of certain powers
which the Pope claimed in the case of heretic princes. The removal
of the fear of armed invasion had caused the Government to sub
stitute in the oath for the old promise to oppose a foreign army,
the denial of a right claimed by the popes of deposing heretic
Kings, discharging subjects from their allegiance and licensing
revolt against them. For years, James had been particularly
afraid that the Pope would exercise these prerogatives against
him when he came to the English throne, and that the Catholics
would then be strong enough to hold the balance of power. To
this end,1 he had begun his bungling negotiations in 1599, while
still King of Scotland. For this, he had played with the papal
nuncio at Brussels, during the summer and fall of 1603, and spas
modically during the following year ; the Pope was willing enough
to correspond, though he had no intention of granting such re
quests, and James soon gave up the idea of negotiating directly
with Rome. Therefore, he lent a willing ear to Bancroft's infor
mation that the priests had already been offering for some time
to renounce those very powers of the Pope.

We have, therefore, these two threads, the explicit offers of the
priests, and the demands of the Government: the former ready to
swear allegiance to the King but unwilling to avow their disbelief
in any of the papal powers ; the latter insisting upon the unquali
fied renunciation of the papal prerogatives, as far as they might
openly affect the relation of the English Catholics to the King,
but not prepared to urge strongly that general disavowal of the
Pope's spiritual powers, which the oath of supremacy required.
In truth, so long as the Government maintained the legal position
taken in 1559, that the King was supreme governor, and that the
papal headship had been rightfully abrogated, it could do no less

i This is a point which has been tion ether to come, or favour the

much debated. It is set as nearly at Catholick religioun, for the contrair

rest as it is likely it ever will be, by was conteyned expreslie in the Let-

a letter of the Jesuit Wm. Creighton, teris . . . saying tnat albeit he re-

to Sir Andrew Murray. This says maned constant in that religioun in

that the object of James's negotia- the which he was nurisched from his

tions with the Pope was "that they cradle, yet he wold not be enimye and

suld not excommunicat his Maieste or persecutour of the Catholikes, so long

absolue his subiectes from his obedi- as thay suld remaine faithfull and

ence. " . . . "It was not gevin to obedient subiectes to him." Botfield

understand to the Pope that the Orininnl T pttm ' T ifll • •Tannary 17' 1608-

Kingis Maiestie was in any disposi- 'rWnal Betters, 1, 183 ., Jamiary ^ 1R09;

107

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

than insist that the Pope had no power whatever to influence the
relations between the King and his subjects.

In pursuance of this theory, Bancroft drew up, in 1605, a form
on which to examine priests and recusants, which would demon
strate how far they were really willing to make such concessions
as the King desired.1 First came a clear recognition that James
was the lawful and rightful sovereign, and that those before whom
they took the oath were lawful magistrates. Then followed, in
brief but precise phrases an acknowledgement that the Pope
could not depose the King, nor discharge his subjects from their
allegiance, nor authorise foreign invasion, nor license any tumult
or revolt or any attempt against the King's person or estate. In
conclusion, the Catholic declared that he made the statement on the
true faith of a Christian Catholic, without mental evasion or equiv
ocation of any description. This, however, was far more extreme
than anything which the Catholics themselves had up to that
time offered and, although some priests may have taken it in
1605, it was not espoused by any Catholic faction as a whole.

Then came the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, and in Black-
well's letter, issued two days later, we find the first public tender
to the Government by the official head of the secular organisation,
of those points which the priests had so often offered in private
submissions. It expressed great horror of the plot, denounced the
theory of conversion by force, and discountenanced any violence
against the King's person or estate. But, far from rejecting the
Pope's authority, Blackwell openly declared that the Pope and the
Catholic theologians, with one accord, believed in those conclu
sions, and he issued his later order against violence, with the ex
press statement that the Pope would undoubtedly approve of it.
Although the Archpriest's letter spelt defiance of the Jesuits, and
although its consequences were highly important, its detailed state
ments were more conservative than any which the seculars had of
fered to the Government. Nevertheless, the bare fact that the let
ter had been published at such a crisis, was the greatest concession
the priests had as yet made. It was done, however, at the ex
pense of the Jesuits, not of the Pope.

The discovery of Garnet's complicity in the treason, and the
consequent increase of the popular feeling against the Catholics,

i Petyt MSS 538 38, f. 212. Hitherto unpublished.
108

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

changed the minds of the priests once more. There can be little
doubt that the final form of the oath of allegiance was prepared by
Bancroft, after consultation with the secular leaders/ and that
they accepted it themselves, and gave assurances of the readiness
of Catholics in general to take it, before the oath was ever adopted
by Parliament.

The Oath, as finally enacted, was a verbatim repetition of Ban
croft's form of 1605, with the addition of the substance of the
priests' own submissions. It had, therefore, two well-defined
parts, the one theoretical and the other practical: first, a declara
tion that the Pope did not possess certain powers, which he
claimed to exercise against heretic sovereigns; and secondly, an
agreement that, if the Pope did exercise those prerogatives, his
commands ought to be disobeyed. To these was added, first, an
acknowledgement that no power whatsoever could dispense writh the
oath, or discharge a man from his obligations; and second, a long
declaration from the form of 1605, that the Catholics took the
oath without mental reservation of any sort. But it therefore
required no affirmation of James's spiritual headship, and no gen
eral adjuration of the Pope's spiritual power; and was as purely
a temporal oath as could be devised. With this idea the King him
self was in full accord, for in his "Apologie" for the oath, he said
that the oath, "only medling with the ciuill obedience of Sub-
iectes to their Soueraigne, in meere temporall causes," does
not "concerne in any case the Pope's Supremacie in Spirituall
Causes. " ' ' Can there be one word found in all that Oath, tending
or sounding to matter of religion ? Doeth he that taketh it, prom
ise there to beleeue, or not to beleeue any article of Religion? Or
doeth hee so much as name a trew or false Church there? And
as for Saint Peter's Primacie, I know of no Apostles name that is
therein named." "As the Oath of supremacie was deuised for
putting a difference between Papists and them of our profession,
so was this Oath, which hee would seeme to impugne, ordained

1 Mr. Taunton, in his Jesuits in dealing in important matters: Per-

England, 351, says, without quoting kins was not one of the secular

his authority, that Bancroft drew up leaders; and it contradicts the fact

the oath at the suggestion, or with that our best evidence shows that the

the advice, of a renegade Jesuit, oath of allegiance was a growth, and

Christopher Perkins. On the face of was not made at any one time by any

it, this seems unlikely; it contradicts one man. Moreover, the substance of

all we know of Bancroft's methods of it was Bancroft's form of 1605.

109

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

for making a difference betweene the ciuilly obedient Papists and
the peruerse disciples of the Powder Treason." * The oath of al
legiance of 1606 was therefore no innovation. All its ideas had
long been familiar, and had appeared and reappeared in various
guises ever since 1597. Far from being a piece of intentional and
unexampled severity, it was really a compromise.

The effect of the Gunpowder treason, moreover, far from pro
voking a persecution of the Catholics, and far from rupturing all
the relations so carefully fostered by Bancroft, consummated the
alliance of the Government and the seculars, by influencing the
priests to accept the minimum demands of the State. Instead of
being the signal for new oppression, the oath of allegiance was
to be the open sesame to toleration, the test of loyalty, the sieve
that should winnow the wheat from the chaff. To take it was to
be admitted to membership in the new sodality of Catholic En
glishmen, a secular organisation of loyal Catholics in pursuit of
purely spiritual ends, to be administered in the furtherance of
domestic peace and of mutual trust between men of different
creeds.

But there still stood on the statute book the penal laws of Eliza
beth, and the Parliament of 1606 added others which were even
more stringent. Here came into play the Puritan horror of Catho
licism, the Anti-Spanish, Anti-Jesuit feeling inherited from the
Armada times. In Parliament, this party was in the majority
and passed the new laws and reaffirmed the old with a determina
tion to crush the Papists at last, and either to exterminate them or
expel them from the new Canaan. It was the spirit of conformity,
or, as we call it to-day, the spirit of persecution. When the Puri
tan demanded the banishment of the Catholic, he was guilty of

i Works of James I, (1616) 263, there a separation and distinction

264, 265, 269. On page 292 James made between that sort of ^papists

declared that he had forced the House and the other pernicious sort." (Tier-

of Commons to strike out of the oath ney, IV, clxxxvii.) The Venetian

a clause stating that the Pope had no Ambassador reported, S^y 1' isos

power to excommunicate him^ that JameB , , f esses himself amazed

proclamation of 1610 stated that, ^ ^ ^ ghould be prohibited

"howsoever odious it was to the Pope ^^ it .g real] gQ much milder than

yet was it only devised as an act Qath exacted b hig predecessors,

great favour and clemency towards Thug Qne .fl tryi to make the

so many of our subjects, who, though archpriest recede from his position,

blinded with the superstition of pop- and Jthe other to confirm him in it. "

ery, yet carried a dutiful heart to- Venetian Calendar, XT, no. 168.
wards our obedience: for hereby was

110

GUNPOWDER PLOT AND OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

that same intolerance, and that same persecution of which he com
plained so bitterly, when the Church deprived him of his benefice
for his own nonconformity. According to our standards the one
is as worthy of reprobation as is the other. Certainly the record of
episcopal ''persecution" is far shorter, far less fierce, and far less
merciless, than the long and unbroken series of Puritan demands
in and out of Parliament, for the extirpation of the Catholics.

The new laws provided that the recusants should not only attend
church, but receive the communion yearly according to the An
glican rite. Where the act of 1587 had allowed the Crown to seize
two-thirds of the offenders' lands when the fine of £20 was not
paid, the King might now take the two-thirds at will. The pun
ishment of death for conversion to Romanism was extended to the
convert as well as to the agent of his relapse from grace. The
other Act of this same year offered large rewards for information
of recusancy: banished all Papists from the Court and from the
city of London, except under special conditions; excluded them
from the medical and legal professions, from the army and navy,
from all minor public offices and from trustee- or guardianship.
All the property of recusants educated abroad devolved at once
upon the Protestant next to kin ; arms and munitions of war, in the
possession of the Catholics, were at once to be confiscated; and the
right to search their houses for popish relics and books was freely
accorded to the justices of the peace. Catholic wives of Protes
tant husbands were severely penalized.

These exceedingly harsh provisions were probably never put in
to full execution ; and it is probable, though not certain, that the
Government never expected or intended that they should be.1 It
was well to enact them to satisfy and silence the Protestant fanat
ics by a pious show of zeal. It was equally well to have them on
the statute books to use if the situation should, at any time, de
mand rigorous measures. In fact, during the whole reign of
James, the penal laws were used to threaten and coerce the re
fractory, who refused the oath of allegiance and were not amen
able to persuasion. Those Catholics who would take the oath of
allegiance and accept the leadership of the secular priests, need not

1 ' ' Yet so f arre hath both my heart haue euer yet bene put in execution. ' '

and gouernment bene from any bit- These words were written in 1609.

ternes, as almost neuer one of those Works of James I, (1616), 292.
sharpe additions to the former Lawes

111

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

be troubled with fines and penalties, but all the Jesuits and their
supporters, all foreign plotters and their books and letters, all
those who stiffly refused the governmental overtures, these might
well feel the weight of the law, from time to time, not so much to
exterminate them, as to coerce them into the acceptance of the new
compromise. Just so long as every priest in England was liable
to death at the pleasure of the State, just so long as the whole
Catholic organisation existed on suffrance without legal right, so
long would the leaders be compelled to take the Bishop of London,
or some other high official, into their confidence, reveal to him
their plans, secure his consent and assistance to their consumma
tion, and, through him, obtain redress for their grievances. The
existence of the penal laws, not their execution, was the guarantee
for the loyalty of the secular Catholics to the State. The new
settlement of 1606 was, therefore, Janus-like : the Judges would go
down to the assizes, bearing in one hand the oath of allegiance,
and in the other the sword of the new penalties, and the Catholics
should choose. But before we attempt to trace the further history
of this new compact between Bancroft and the seculars against
Rome and the Jesuits, it will be necessary for us to turn our at
tention to certain other proceedings in this Parliament and in the
Convocation which met at the same time.

CHAPTER IV

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO ECCLESIASTICAL REFORM

The manifesto issued by the Puritan leaders in August, 1604,
after the prorogation of Parliament, urged all Puritans to refuse
the bishops' demands on the ground that "To subscribe weare
iniuriously to discourage and reproache the religious kmghtes and
gentlemen of the parliament, who uppon good grownde haue
labored to remoue it. It would prevent them of the good which
they may doe in this behalf the next Session of the Parliament,
would animate the Busshopps to enforme the Kinge that it was but
a fancy of his lower house to stand soe much uppon subscription,
for the ministers themselues haue yealded sailing a verie fewe.'
Yet despite their efforts, many had conformed and subscribed, a
number had been deprived, more had been suspended and admon
ished and now, as the Parliament assembled for its next session,
on that memorable fifth of November, 1605, the Puritan clergy and
laity eagerly awaited "the good" it should do for the cause, and
the demonstration to King and bishops that the House of Com
mons was stirred by deeper motives than "fancy" and "smgular-
itie." With a somewhat different sort of eagerness, Bancroft also
looked forward to the session. He anticipated an attempt to call
the bishops to account for their conduct during the past year and
a half and he expected to find the House ready to interfere in
ecclesiastical affairs, and to initiate legislation on religious topics
in the face of the royal prohibition and the vote of Convocation n
the previous session.2 Its attitude would indicate, he felt, the opin
ions of the real supporters of the Puritan movement, of the
men whose adherence kept the schemes for the installation of the
Discipline alive, and whose money and encouragement maintained
the nonconforming ministers. As he knew very well, the pressure
of poverty and of public opinion would very soon have compel!
the vast majority of the Puritans to capitulate, had they not 1
i Additional MSS. 28571, f. 205. « See Book IT, Chapter TIT.

113

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

able to take refuge, with their families, at the houses of the gentry,
where hunger, cold, and the Archbishop's pursuivants ceased to
exert "their wholesome pressure," as he would have phrased it.
Bancroft had conquered the underlings, and now the virtual leaders
themselves had come forward to carry on the battle of the Presby
tery against Episcopacy.

The situation in November, 1605, differed somewhat from that
of the preceding year, but, in nearly every instance, succeeding
events had only served still more to embitter the contending parties.
The Knightleys, Mountagus, and the Northamptonshire gentlemen,
had not improved their previous bad reputation at Court by the
presentation of their petition of February, 1604-5 in favour of the
deprived ministers. Sir Edwin Sandys had also attained such
notoriety that his books were burnt by order of the High Commis
sion in Paul's Churchyard, shortly before the opening of Parlia
ment.1 Kingsmill,2 Wroth, Rich, Fuller, and the rest, had not
been backward in abetting the Puritan preachers of their own
districts in their resistance to the Church, and the opposition,
which they, one and all, had shown in 1604, on constitutional and
legal grounds, to the King and his prerogative, had sown discord
and suspicion between them and the royal government. The
suspicion and wrath were mutual, for the Puritan gentry suspected
James and Bancroft of schemes to aggrandise the Church at the
expense of the laity.

The events, which had transpired since the prorogation of the
last Parliament, increased the Puritan resentment. The Canons,
despite the protests of the House of Commons, had been ratified
by the King ; the ministers had been deprived in the face of petitions
and remonstrances, and it counted for nothing that the number,
who had actually been deprived, were few, their learning small,
and their conduct reprehensible ; the administration of the Church
had been remodelled and made more efficient than ever before.
Worst of all, the Gunpowder Plot had resulted, not in a severe per
secution of the Papists, but in an even more intimate understanding
between the Government and the secular priests. Instead of being
hanged, the priests were conferring with the Bishop of London;
instead of being fined, the recusants were practically tolerated;

1 S. P. Dom. Jac. I, XVI, no. 23. 2 A great landowner in Hampshire,

November 7, 1605. the patron of Dr. Feilde and others.

114

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

and, as the weeks slipped by, all the Puritan fears of Popery were
confirmed threefold. On the other hand, the gentry's confidence
was increased by the consciousness that they had gained a powerful
ally in the common lawyers. The archbishop 's scheme for remodel
ling the ecclesiastical fabric by administrative orders and through
the decisions of his courts, had received a severe check from the
readiness of the common law judges to issue prohibitions, and, what
was more, to sustain them. Had not the clergy acknowledged the
serious obstacle thus put in their way, by the complaint against the
common law courts which the Archbishop had just presented to the
Privy Council? Had he not as much as said that, if the existing
practice in regard to prohibitions could be maintained, the admin
istration of the Church would be wrecked? The Puritans intended
to lose no opportunity of strengthening the hands of the common
lawyers. The contest between the Puritans and the Church was,
therefore, not ended, but was resumed with new vigour, new cour
age, and a new purpose.

During the last fifteen months, the Puritan ministers had not
been idle and had produced at least a dozen pamphlets, full of legal
and theological arguments, which furnished their lay friends ample
material for parliamentary speeches. The Lincolnshire and Devon
shire ministers printed long defences of their conduct. William
Bradshaw published at least three books, A Protestation of the
King's Supremacy, made in the name of the afflicted ministers, A
Proposition concerning Kneeling in the very act of Receiving, and,
most significant of all, A Treatise of the Nature and Use of Things
Indifferent tending to prove that the Ceremonies in present con-
trouersie are . . . neither in Nature or Use Indifferent. Then came
Twelve Arguments to prove the ceremonies "unlawful," and A
Short Dialogue by Samuel Hieron, declaring that the arguments
used to justify them had previously been employed by the Papists
to defend their superstitions. Richard Bernard (?) issued a
Dissuasion from the way of Separation; Henoch Clapham wrote
An Epistle to such as le distracted in mynd in respect of the present
styrres in the Church, while a pamphlet entitled Certaine Demandes
with their Oroundes drawne out of holy writ, demanded from the
archbishop and five bishops a "true, plaine, direct, honest, and
resolute answere." Many of these hinted that the Canons of 1604
were illegal, because they had not been confirmed by Parliament,

115

THE RECONSTRUCTION OP THE ENGLISH CHURCH

and the point had been included among those sent out by the leaders
in the summer and fall of 1604. This idea was now fully developed
in the tract, Certain considerations drawne from the Canons of
the last sinod, and was answered in an official publication, dedicated
to Bancroft, written by Francis Mason. B. D.—The Authorise
of the Church in making Canons and Constitutions concerning
things indifferent and the obedience thereto required. The
point was continually alluded to during the years 1604 and
1605 and assumed prominence early in the session of 1606 and
1607.

Like the Puritan attitude toward subscription, the argument
was a development and a consequence of the idea which had
survived from the old Teutonic law, that no man could be bound by
anything to which he had not personally assented, except to the
tribal or national law into which he was born. Therefore, inasmuch
as the laity were not represented in Convocation at all, the Catholics
and the Puritan laymen claimed that the Canons were not binding
upon them. The Puritan ministers felt that they too were not
represented in Convocation, that the bishops and their underlings
were anti-christian, Baal's priests," without proper authority to
legislate for the Church at all; and they too rejected the Canons
as illegal. Pressed, however, by political and ecclesiastical forces
to obey, they agreed to accept the Canons, if they should be con-
firmed by Parliament, hoping that their lay friends in the House
of Commons would effectually oppose that confirmation. Accord
ing to the legal views of that date, however, confirmation was
superfluous.

Henry VIII, Elizabeth, and James all considered that the assenj.
of_^elaityjo ^cclesia^ic^negisjation had .JbeeiTgiven

of Parliament to thejegislation of HennL VIII.:. that
right of the laity to assent to Canons had then boon delegateOor
qtTTuture lime toJKing and Convocation.

^ The twelve judgesTTn February7T604-5, declared in the Star
Chamber advisedly, before a dignified concourse_o|_lawyers, nobles,
gentry, and ecclesiastics, that "They held it clear that the King
without Parliament might make orders and constitutions for the
Government of the clergie. " Although nothing was said here about
the laity (probably because the authority of the Canons over the
laity was not then in question), the Canons of 1604 seem to have

11?

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

been considered, till at least 1640, by the common law judges, as
well" "as by the ecclesiastics and statesmen, to be legally binding
upon both clergy and laity.1 Later legal opinion was to the con
trary, and for two centuries it has been said by judges, chiefly in
obiter dicta, that Canons which had not been confirmed by Parlia
ment, would not bind the laity ; and that the Canons of 1604, being
still unconfirmed, were legally effective only on the clergy. The
growth of the power of Parliament, the assumption by the temporal
courts of most of the lay offences covered by the Canons and the
ecclesiastical law, the complete denial of the right of the clergy to
hold jurisdiction over the laity at all, made such a legal dictum
necessary and inevitable. Such, however, was not the best opinion
in 1606.

The consideration of the Gunpowder Plot, and the discussion of
the measures to be employed for the repression of the Catholics —
in all of which Bancroft was very active — consumed so much
time and so engrossed the attention of both Houses of Parliament,
that the Puritans and Church matters proper were not reached
till the month of January, 1606, was far spent. On January 21,
Bancroft 2 secured the appointment, by the Lords, of a committee
to "consider how the Laws are already in Force, that tend to the
Preservation of Religion . . . and what Defects are in the execu
tion of them or what New Laws may be thought needful." This
roused the House of Commons to action, and on the following day,
Mr. Wentworth lamented the scandal caused by the presence of
ignorant and nonresident clergymen, and declared that "an able
ministry, learned (and) resident" was a necessity. A great com
mittee was appointed to confer with the Lords, and many letters
were written "into the country to understand the Grievances."

1 There is abundant positive, as erences to the Journals of Lords and
well as negative, evidence of this in Commons have not been given, be-
most of the diocesan registries, and cause the dates indicate even better
in many of the Law Eeports. Papers the whereabouts of the entry. As
in Coke's XII and XIII Eeports and with the Parliament of 1604, there
II, III, and IV Institutes are not the are a large number of manuscript
best evidence in this connection. bills, petitions, etc., which may refer

2 A Latin copy of the summons of to this session, but which cannot be
Bancroft to Parliament, as Archbish- dated with sufficient certainty to
op is in Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F, justify acceptance by the critical.
II, f. 43. In Stowe MSS. 168, f. These are in the State Papers; Cot-
320-323 ; 362, are notes of debates in ton MSS. Cleopatra, F, II ; and in the
this session which are interesting, but Report on the House of Lords MSS.
not particularly valuable. Page ref-

117

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

No response was received from the latter, and as the Lords were
slow to act, the members of the House brought in bills of their own
to remedy the difficulties. On February 8, Sir Edwin Sandys
brought forward again that well-known measure, once more revised
and revamped, the bill "for the better establishing of true Reli
gion," which, with the bills introduced toward the end of the
month, against nonresidence, against pluralities, "for the more
due execution of Ecclesiasticall government" contained the scheme
for the introduction of Presbyterianism. Sir Francis Hastings
also championed a bill for the restoration of the deprived ministers,
which, with all the others, was duly read and committed. From the
supporters of the Government in the House came a bill for the
"Establishing of true Religion" which was "stayed from the
Question. ' ' Matters then drifted amicably along till the middle of
March, and, as might be expected, Bancroft was glad to postpone,
as long as possible, the struggle which he realised was inevitable
between the House of Commons and the bishops.

On March 15th, Fuller, Morrice, and some of the more radical of
the Puritan sympathisers, "much urged" the grievances of the
deprived ministers. Sir Richard Spenser, on the other hand,
complained no less loudly of the " self -weening Opinion of some
Ministers," and maintained that matters of discipline were to be
changed by those in authority according to times and places. In
no case were the ceremonies, agreed upon by a general convocation,
to be subject to the judgment of private men. Sir Francis
Hastings suggested a petition to the King, but wished the House
to disavow any intention of innovation or of introducing the
Presbytery, and was supported by Mr. Wentworth, who described
the poverty and sufferings of the ministers since their depriva
tion. Both were, however, reminded by Sir George Moore that the
issue in debate was not the extent of the ministers' sufferings, but
whether their sufferings were not the necessary consequence of
their disobedience to the clear law of the Church. The only point
left to discuss, declared Moore, was the legality of the deprivation.
Nevertheless, the deprivation of the ministers was voted a "griev-
nace." Two days later, Fuller produced the grievances against
the High Commission, wished the numerous diocesan commissions
revoked and the maintenance thereafter of only two general com
missions, — one at London, and the other at York, as had been

118

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

proposed at the Hampton Court Conference. "That is no fit
grievance to be presented," declared Sir Daniel Dun, somewhat
warmly, as may be imagined, for he was one of the civilians closely
associated with Bancroft, besides being himself a member of the
Commission. Assisted by Sir John Bennett, later Judge of the
Prerogative Court, he succeeded in recommitting the clause. But
all in vain, for when the grievances were reported to the House
on April 5, the strenuous efforts of the civilians to strike out
such phrases as "the unlimited Authority of high commissions,"
were futile, and the grievances were accepted substantially as
reported.

A message was then sent to the Lords, requesting a conference
on the four points: the silencing of ministers, the multiplicity of
ecclesiastical commissions, citation, and excommunication. The
Lords had just begun to discuss in committee a lengthy proposal of
Bancroft's regarding excommunication for small causes and the
substitution of some other process for it.1 From the King had
come a message stating that he wished the practice reformed, but
desired at the same time to uphold the ecclesiastical jurisdiction ' ' in
all respects as is fit." The Upper House was therefore busy, and
its members were so nonplussed when they saw the grievances in
which the Commons wished them to join, that they postponed
immediate action. Two days later, by way of partially appeasing
the impatience of the Commons, two of the hostile bills already sent
up were read a first time, but a long debate on the grievances pro
duced no result. A committee of which Bancroft was chairman
discussed the topic and reported, but brought the Lords no nearer
a decision. A strong party, of whom Bancroft seems to have been
the leader, desired to refuse concurrence point blank, on the ground
that the House of Commons had no right to take cognisance of
ecclesiastical affairs at all,2 but they were finally won over to the
proposal of a conference, with a committee from the Lower House.
The Commons, well understanding the issue and the significance
of the delay by the Lords, assented to the conference and then, as
an earnest of their own unchangeable hostility to the Church,
proceeded to read, a second time, the bill against scandalous and
unworthy ministers.

1 See a manuscript journal on the f. 72 b, et seq.

action of the House of Lords, during 2 The evidence on the point is

these months, in Harleian MSS. 767, vague, fragmentary, and confusing.

119

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

On April 14, the Committee met: the bishops listened to the
speeches of the delegates of the Commons, and Bancroft said, on
behalf of his colleagues, that the matter was one of great impor
tance, that time was needed to deliberate upon it, and that he would
report to the Upper House, which would in due time send a suitable
reply. Three days later, on April 17, while the Puritan ministers
in and about London fasted and prayed for a favourable outcome,
the committees met again at the Painted Chamber, and listened to
the "four points very curiously and learnedly handled by four
apostles of the Lower House. ' ' * The Archbishop 's reply was
reported on April 29 by Sir Francis Bacon to a very thin house.
Bancroft narrated the proceedings against the ministers, told of
their "factious" behaviour, descanted on the eleven books which
they had published and the numerous petitions of various types
which had been presented, and concluded that they had been by no
means blameless. The bishops had required from them nothing
new or unusual, for subscription was insisted upon in every
reformed church in Europe,2 and nowhere so stringently as at
Geneva. Nor was the subscription in itself objectionable: it was
a sort of negative protestation, which did not imply that the sub
scriber professed his individual assent or agreement to the Thirty-
Nine Articles and Book of Common Prayer. And, if it did, it was
a public form taken for the good of the Church as a whole, which
a man ought to take and still believe individually whatever he
chose. At the worst, there was little superstition in the ceremonies
to which they subscribed: kneeling was simply a manifestation of
reverence to Christ, the sign of the cross in baptism was not of the
essence of the Sacrament, and the surplice was only a "coat with
four elbows." He saw, therefore, no reason for continuing con
nivance at such nonconformity but thought the law might very
well be enforced. The Bishop of Winchester spoke for the High
Commission and the Bishop of Bath and Wells defended the
practice of citations as observed in the ecclesiastical courts, while
the Bishop of St. David's justified excommunication. In the four
bishops' speeches, declared Bacon, were "strength, gravity, quick
ness and sincerity."

i S. P. Dom. Jac. I, XX, no. 36. und des Dreissigjdhrigen Krieges,
Carleton to Chamberlain. II, passim. (Stuttgart, 1895.) Also

2Moriz Ritter, Deutsche Geschichte Rymer, Foedera, XVI, 39, for a
in Zeitalter der Gegenre formation Dutch form.

120

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

A fortnight later, on May 1, the Commons replied. Henry
Yelverton, the spokesman of the committee, was a lawyer and
member for Northampton, a borough whose Presbyterian practices
had been notorious for thirty years.1 He said that he hoped "the
scattering suspicion layed upon a few" would not "be fastened
upon all " ; he protested that the Commons desired neither Presby
tery nor parity; excluded from the benefit of the proposed peti
tion all ministers led "by heate of humour," and, waiving the
benefit of law, craved mercy for them on the ground that "many
things lawful were not expedient." He interceded, he said, for
the pious and peaceful ministers whom he and his colleagues admit
ted were not ' ' the only and principal! men. but acknowledged that
the Church is furnished with many other verie lerned and sufficient
men." The admirable candor and moderation of this request took
Bancroft by surprise. He saw, among the members of the com
mittee before him, many a gentleman whom he knew had supported
the old Classis movement and who had either written or spoken or
petitioned more than once in favour of the Book of Discipline.
The speaker, Yelverton, was at that moment the representative of a
borough whose Mayor and Corporation had scarcely a year previous
supported a radical Disciplinarian. He said, at last, that he could
not understand it, and could hardly believe his ears. They dis
claimed parity and Presbytery, and yet were defending men who,
to his own certain knowledge, aimed at nothing else. They dis
owned all who displayed "heate or humour" and yet, in many
cases, the men deprived had given ample evidence of both. If those
who declared the present government of the Church anti-christian
were not schismatics, he did not understand the use of the word.
In acknowledging that the deprived and suspended ministers were
not the only good men in the Church, they were only just, for they
must in sooth, know very many better. "Comparisons becom your
Lordship, but not us," returned Yelverton. "We love there giftes
but not there f aultes. " As to the law, you must be conscious, went
on the Archbishop, that the whole course of the law and the
opinions of all the judges are flatly contrary to your contention.
' ' We desired those men might be protected by mercy, not by law, ' '

1 A long Puritan account of the of Yelverton 's Eeport to the House
conference is in Lambeth MSS. 445 (I, 304), the account in the text ha?
f . 424 ff. from which, with the aid of been made up. It was necessary to
the account in the Commons' Journals abridge it.

121

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

replied Yelverton, who had not raised the point of law because it
rested with the bishops. He then expounded at length the point
on which Burgess and others had already fought stoutly, that the
ministers could only be forced to subscribe by the statute of 13
Elizabeth c. 12, which required it only on induction, and compelled
no one already in office to subscribe. If the ministers had been
inducted since 1571 without subscribing, that was the Bishop's
fault, he declared, and the difficulty could not now be legally reme
died by exacting subscription universally. Moreover, the law
ordered men to subscribe only to such articles of the Thirty-Nine
as concerned faith and the sacraments, and nothing was said about
subscription to the Book of Common Prayer at all. Nine men in
Oxfordshire and one in Warwickshire had been illegally deprived
* ' for not subscribing to the Thirty-sixth Canon, because that Canon
giveth no such subscription or punishment. We said generally for
all, that all there (i. e. the bishops') procedings since the last
Session of Parliament are not warranted by the Law," for the
bishops issued their processes under their own seals instead of
under the King's. An Act of Edward VI (1 Edward VI. c. 2) had
directed the bishops to use the King's seal, and to issue process in
his name, not in their own ; and the Act, though repealed by 1 Mary
c. 2, had been revived when the Act of Mary, in its turn, was
repealed by 1 Jac. I. c. 25. All the episcopal acts since 1604 were,
therefore, void ; all the men deprived were ipso facto reinstated in
their places, and the bishops themselves were at the King's mercy
for their illegal procedure. In conclusion, he begged the Lords to
join with the Commons in this petition to the King.

Bancroft replied that the condition of affairs made mercy inex
pedient; he saw no indication of reform on the part of those to
whom clemency had already been shown ; and indeed found them
bolder than before, still writing books, still preaching against the
Establishment. The Commons had petitioned in their favour
"when the clowdes began to gather together," said Yelverton, "but
since (then) the storme had fallen and thrust out three hundred,"
and in these dangerous times, with the papists increasing, they felt
the need of those quiet and unassuming pastors, who agreed with
the Churc-h in doctrine though not in ceremony, while the papists,
who were tolerated, agreed in ceremony but not in doctrine. Not
three hundred peaceable men were ejected, retorted Bancroft, but

122

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

sixty factious and unreasonable ministers, against whom were
opposed nine thousand conformable clergy. Their disagreement
in ceremony was vital, for, where there were no ceremonies and no
established form of worship, the Church as an institution could not
exist. The fact that thousands conformed was of no consequence,
said Yelverton, especially such thousands as had been gathered
into the Church, — the covetous, the nonresident, those unable to
preach or expound, "Dum Images" without "strength to lay the
Axe to the roote of the Tree. ' ' Pity the starving wives and children
of these poor and pious men who are thrust out into the cold ; pity
the man himself whose fault was "of infirmitie and for feare of
sinn;" beware lest in grubbing out the tares, you do not at the
same time destroy the corn. If their Lordships would but join in
this petition to the King, they would bind the whole laity of Eng
land to them in gratitude.

Bancroft replied that he marvelled to find them supporting so
strongly the very men who declared them reprobates and covetous
seekers of the spoils of the Church. He referred to the breach
still unhealed between the gentry and ministers over the disposition
of the ecclesiastical property when the Church should finally
become Presbyterian. As to the points of law, the statute of
Elizabeth did not intend to separate faith and the sacraments from
ceremony. The sacraments were ceremonies and ceremonies were
religion ; the Act intended that men should assent to all thirty-nine
of the Articles and never meant that it should be expounded by
every Tom and Jack, as he pleased. Nevertheless, he admitted
(according to the Puritan account) that some of the ministers had
not been deprived according to the forms of strict law, and that
subscription ought to be required only from men who applied for
induction to benefices and could not be legally required of the
whole existing clergy. But he did insist that the bishop's proceed
ings were legal: the Act of Edward VI regarding the use of the
King's seal by the bishops was in the affirmative and said only,
it shall be thus, and did not declare, it shall be thus and not other
wise. In any case, the statute of James only repealed the Act of
Mary, and did not expressly revive the Act of Edward VI. If
his acts had been illegal, he was willing to trust the King's clem
ency. Then, turning to Yelverton 's defense of the ministers, he
remarked that where they declared their pastors kept the people

123

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

warm, he thought they kept them too warm and taught them
indiscreet behaviour. "Our good opinions of them made them the
worse and yf we will lett our petition fall this session they will all
subscribe." He disliked the reflections cast upon the character of
the conforming clergy: there were many things desirable in a
minister besides the ability to preach. Religion was something
more than a matter of the intellect. "There is no religion where
there are no ceremonies, the hands, the knees must be affected
besides the harte." He urged them to support only the conform
able clergy in the future, and said again that there was no hope
of mercy for the deprived ministers without some assurance that
they would conform.

On May 3, when Yelverton reported to the House the results
of the conference, the debate between the adherents of the bishops
and their opponents waxed so acrimonious that the clerk of the
House either became too interested to write or thought the remarks
too indiscreet to be preserved, for he left only a series of dashes in
the records. The balance of power lay with the opposition, for the
House at once read a third time and sent up to the Lords, the bill
to restrain the execution of canons ecclesiastical unless confirmed
by Parliament, and the Act against scandalous and unworthy
ministers.

The Lord Chancellor delivered the bishops' final answer to the
House and was, so Mr. Martin reported on May 13, "short and
rough." He said, in substance, that obedience was the most desir
able of virtues, and that, if the ministers had possessed it, they
would not be in need of mercy. The objection of the Commons
would be considered, the use of excommunication in minor matters
would be reformed, but the House would do well to relinquish the
subject to the bishops to whom it belonged. Not one whit daunted,
the House despatched Sir Francis Bacon to the King with a long
petition containing the grievances against the Canons, the oath ex
offcio, the deprivations, and the like,1 and the Speaker communi
cated the gist of the petition to the King in person. James was
gracious to both of them.

But the attitude of the House of Commons had excited the hos
tility of the clergy in general, who, animated by the new spirit of
institutional life which Bancroft had infused into them, were not
i Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F, II, f. 191, undated.

124

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

slow to express their resentment. One of them, however, selected
an inopportune time to express his indignation. Parker, one of
the Canons of Lincoln Cathedral and a member of Convocation,
preached at Paul's Cross on May 25, and stigmatised the action
of the House of Commons as confused and disorderly. The House
was presumptuous, he said, in dealing thus with matters over
wrhich it had no jurisdiction. Such behaviour was little short of
" trespass and sedition." He illustrated this screed with the
parable from IX Judges : where the trees, desirous of choosing a
King, applied in vain to the olive, the fig, and the grape vine, and
found only the bramble willing to accept the post; Convocation
was the olive, he insinuated, and the House of Commons the bramble.
After having harped on these strings for some time with more zeal
than discretion, he at last shouted out, "Doth the Church totter?
Let it totter ! You have nothing to do withall ! " 1 Next morning,
the House of Commons was in an uproar and would very likely have
handled him * ' shrewdly, ' ' had the bishops not already acted in the
matter and had Parliament not been prorogued.

The session was over and the Puritan gentry had accomplished
very little of the "good" so confidently anticipated by their minis
terial friends. Their main difficulty had been an unwillingness
to recognise the facts of the situation, for, while they insisted that
they asked only for mercy, they asserted either explicitly or tacitly,
that the ministers had committed no offence which would justify
their deprivation or suspension. Although Yelverton's speech wras
by far the most moderate yet made in their behalf, he had not only
defended by line and precept the legality of their conduct, but
had also attempted to prove the episcopal proceedings null and
void; and had affirmed as usual that the refusal to subscribe was,
in any case, not an offence of consequence.2 Such a request for

1 Commons ' Journals, I, May 26, and Mary, and one which the legisla-
3606. tion of James T had not disturbed.

2 They had also tried to impeach (See the Case in Parliament, 4 Jacobi
the legality of the bishops' depriva- Begis, S. P. Dom. Jac. I, XXI, no.
tions on the ground that they had 19, also in Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F,
used their own seals instead of the TT, f. 37. Also a paper in XII Ee-
King's. To their chagrin they found ports. 7. These same arguments were
that they had been too hasty, for it later launched against Laud. See
presently developed that the bishops Kegistrum Laud : f . 272 a, at Lambeth
hud been proceeding under the Act of Palace and also the Eeport of the
25 ITenry VIII c. 20, as explicitly re- Judges to the Star Chamber on July
vived by 1 Elizabeth c. 1, a statute 4, 1637 and the proclamation of Au-
later than the acts of both Edward VI gust 18, 1637, in Eymer, Foedera, XX,

125

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

mercy was equivalent to a demand for complete capitulation, and
by granting it, the bishops would have confessed that their pro
ceedings had been unjustifiable. So long as the petition for mercy
was couched in such terms, the Church simply could not grant it,
and maintain its self-respect. The Canons sanctioned the depriva
tion ; the King had explicitly ordered it ; the Judges of the Common
Law had solemnly affirmed its legality in the Star Chamber; and,
so far as anything could be, the deprivation was an accomplished
fact. The bishops had "engaged their credit," and the very least
that could be asked from the ministers and their supporters was
some acknowledgement that they had been at fault.1 But the
ministers, collectively and individually, refused to admit anything
of the kind; the House of Commons, as a body and in committee,
declined even tacitly to concede the point; the petitions of the
gentry and the tracts of the ministers were equally firm. They had
been in the right from the first, and what they meant by "mercy"
was a public acknowledgement of that fact by the bishops, and the
annulling of all the proceedings of the last two years, not as a
concession to grace and clemency, but as a right, as a recognition of
the true legal view of the case.

This had been all very well in 1604 before the Canons had been
confirmed and the Church had taken its stand. But in 1606 the
whole matter was res adjudicata, a question no longer open to
debate, an issue which had been deliberately and consciously
decided by the Church with all the pomp and legal ceremony of
which the institution was capable. Even if the deprivation had
been inexpedient and unjust to the last degree, it would have
been still more inexpedient for the Church to admit that it had
erred. The Puritans demanded, then, what it was not in the power
of the bishops to grant. Nor had the actions of the House con
formed to its protestations. Many bills condemning the condition

156, 168-9.) To Bancroft and the offended his Majestic, they are reddie
Council the incident was another dem- to acknowledge their fault, but they
onstration of the "factious" and ar most loyallie affected to God and
''seditious" behaviour of the Puri- to thaire soveraigne. ' James re-
tans, garded disobedience to the Church as
i ' ' His Majestie to the lower hous equivalent to disloyalty to him : the
supplications for the ministers said Puritans did not. The parties were
that before mercie must go subscrip- therefore talking at cross purposes,
tions and thairfore they must acknowl- A Christian and Modest Offer of a
edge their fault if they looked for Most Indifferent Disputation, (1606).
mercie. Tf it can be prooved they

'126

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

on the other hand bee , , excommunication had

showed that Sn 6d'.

bishops an

of the

-g

.-,..,- -PP™:, CiZi a'* 1"" "M "' "~~-

' '

passages they extracted fronftl, C°UrSe' "Ot given the

S°UrCeS an interre

and Jame w S°UrCeS an interPretation which

Printed in Cardwell 's Synodalia T
127

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

with words signifying that all who disapproved of it were in error,
there was no requirement in the whole volume that any one should
ever be put to the test whether or not he assented to its propositions,
and no penalties were assigned in case he refused. It was not
expected that the Canons would do more than give the English
Church a definite position upon the hotly debated question of
ecclesiastical history between Baronius and Bellarmine, on the one
hand, and Beza and Raignolds, on the other.

Whether or not Bancroft had any share in the drafting of the
Canons, is unknown : he was certainly not in Convocation this year,
having delegated his presidency to a commission headed by Overall.
Presumably, both he and James had approved the general scheme,
or the clergy would never have been allowed to undertake such a
compilation ; the King, however, refused to confirm the final pro
duct and made no secret of his belief that the clergy had dipped
too far into the mysteries reserved for kings alone: Bancroft
approved the first division, but it is not at all certain what he
thought of the Canons as a whole. The leaven of Arminianism had
begun to appear: it was asserted, with increasing frequency, that
priests were made by "God's ordinance" and were not elected by
the people ; that government came to the State from God, and not
from the grant of the people; and that the Kings of Judah were
' * elected and named by God himself. ' ' * Nevertheless, the whole
document is impregnated with the Archbishop's ideas. The
description of the rise of Episcopacy,2 as the product of natural
causes, and not of divine decree, closely tallies with his statements
in the Sermon of 1588.3 Nowhere do we find the words " Divine
Right" applied either to kings or bishops, and the fundamental
part of that theory is lacking, for it is everywhere declared that,
although the present State and Church possess God's approval,
they are not the only possible forms of government which might
receive His commendation. The Laudian theory of the Divine
Right of bishops declared not only that no other form of govern
ment was possible, but that without Episcopacy, no salvation was
to be hoped for ; that it was the one indispensable link between God
and man. No trace of this idea appears in any writing with which
Bancroft had any connection. He always stoutly claimed that

i Articles TT, and VT, Part T, VTT; 2 part IT, Article VT.

XVII , 3 Ilickes, p. 364.

128

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

men could be saved in any of the Reformed Churches; and that
those who lived in the Middle Ages under the corrupt papal dispen
sation, had not been utterly condemned. Government as under
stood by the Church at this time, justly observes Dr. Gardiner,1
"was of far too high a nature to be allowed to depend upon the
arbitrary will of the Pope or of any body of clergy whatever ; still
less should it depend upon the equally arbitrary will of the people ;
it ought not to be based upon will at all ; it was only upon right
that it could rest securely. Such a theory had evidently a better
side than those are accustomed to perceive who malign the Church
of England as a mere handmaid of tyranny. It was a recognition,
in the only way which in that age was possible, of the truth that
society is a whole and that religious teachers cannot rightfully
claim a place apart from it, as if they were removed from the
errors and failings of human nature. ' '

During all these sessions of Parliament, Bancroft had been very
diligent in performing the routine work of the House of Lords;
and, in fact, if the scanty records are to be trusted, was the most
prominent member, the chairman of most of the committees, and a
frequent speaker in debate. The debates in the Lords and confer
ences with the Commons over the Union with Scotland, over
purveyance, wardship, and the tenures, occupied a great deal of
the time during all the sessions of James 's first Parliament ; and in
all Bancroft was active.2 But he did not by any means limit him
self to matters of national importance. He was chairman of
committees to restrain the multitude of buildings in and about
Westminster; to confirm the lands of Sir William Smith against
the claims of All Souls College, Oxford ; to remedy defective titles ;
to repress usury; to preserve wood and timber; to confirm the
lands of companies in London ; to remedy the abuses resulting from
unlicensed alehouses; — all these within three months besides
ecclesiastical business.3 His regularity of attendance was as
remarkable as the scope of his interests: in 1597 he was present
at thirty-one, out of thirty-six sittings; in 1601, at thirty-five out
of thirty-six sittings; in 1604 at fifty-one out of seventy sittings.,

1 History of England, I, 289-290. Union.

2 See especially April 12, 1606 ; 3 These examples have been drawn
December 18, 1606. He was also one from the months December to January
of the Commissioners to confer with and February, 1606-7.

the Scottish Commissioners about

129

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

being this year very busy in Convocation with the passage of the
new Canons; in 1605-1606, at all but three out of seventy-nine
sittings ; in 1606-1607, he sat seventy out of eighty-eight days, and
in 1610, was present fifty-three times and absent forty-five times,
chiefly because of illness. Such constant attendance in Parliament
was remarkable for a man so active in the High Commission, in the
Privy Council, and in his diocesan and archiepiscopal duties. He
must have suffered a great deal, during these later years of his life,
from his old enemies, the ague and the stone ; and nothing attests
his great physical strength so well as does his continued energy and
vigour.

During the spring of 1606, while Parliament was in session and
during the summer while it was prorogued, the Puritan ministers
continued to write, publish, and preach in a fashion which con
firmed the royal and episcopal belief that they still were eager to
establish the Discipline; and were now urging the case of the
deprived ministers less to reinstate them in their benefices, than
to censure the bishops for having deprived them; and to secure
from Parliament a distinct affirmation that the ecclesiastical pro
cedure was illegal.

At this juncture, Henry Jacobs published a tract, which had
been circulating for some time in manuscript,1 entitled, A Christian
and Modest Offer of a most indifferent conference or Disputation
about the maine and princypall controversies betwixt the Prelates
and the late silenced and deprived ministers. He proposed to argue
and defend these propositions : * * Everie trew visible Churche of
Christ is suche a spiritualle bodie politik as is speciallie institut by
Christ or his Apostles in the new Testament. There is no trew
visible church of Christ but a particular ordinary congregation
onely. Everie trew visible Churche of Christ or ordinarie assemblie
of the faithfull hath by Christ's ordonance power in itself imediate
under Christ to elect and ordaine depryve and depose their minis
ters and to exercent all other ecclesiasticall censures." "The office
and calling of Provinciall and Diocesan Prelats is contrarie to the
word of God. " " The ceremonies in controversie ar not indifferent,
but contrarie to the word of God. The ministers refusing the

1 There is a manuscript copy in book, which could be bought for a

Lambeth MSS. 933, f. 24 without few pence, should have been copied

date. It is in a good clerkly hand out carefully by hand,
and it seems unlikely that a printed

130

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

conformitie and subscription requyred ar therein nether schis-
maticks, Seditious persons, Enemmies to the Kings Supremacie or
annie way undewtif ull to King or State. ' '

He declared that he spoke for the whole party ; he had been and
was still one of its leaders, was a man well known to bishops and
statesmen alike; and although his views were now more radical
than those of the majority of his old friends, he had been spokes
man so long that no one would believe he had not still a large
following. There could be no doubt that he aimed here at parity,
he spoke of the "Presbytery" desired; he declared the bishops
unlawful and he exonerated the ministers of all blame. Yet the
House of Commons had but just declared that they desired neither
parity nor Presbytery, but simply mercy ! Jacobs really disavowed
the protestations made in Parliament, and injured his party beyond
estimation. How could the bishops publicly debate whether or not
their own offices were contrary to Scripture and sustain any view
except the affirmative ? How could they debate the question of the
deprivation of the ministers and conclude that the ministers were
innocent ? The Puritans seemed to expect them voluntarily to come
forward and convict themselves, by their own statements, of cruelty,
oppression, and illegal conduct. Other tracts came forth in favour
of the Church, notably Peilde 's Of the Church Four Bookes, which
he dedicated to Bancroft. When the Parliament met, therefore, in
November for the session of 1606-7, the situation was no less
strained than it had been at the prorogation in May.

The conduct of the lower House was not calculated to restore
confidence and harmony. It began by considering the Bill against
Canons not confirmed by Parliament; proceeded to read and pass
a bill attacking the procedure of the ecclesiastical courts; and so
read and passed most of the radical bills of the previous session.
Then, in May, came the usual petition of grievances, which was
reported from the committee on June 16. It was based upon the
petition of 1606 and was to serve, in its turn, as precedent for the
mammoth bill of ecclesiastical grievances of 1610. Just as the
Puritan demands at the Hampton Court Conference, the Canons of
1604, and the Oath of Allegiance were the outgrowth of previous
experience, so, too, the petitions of Parliament and the proposed
Puritan legislation were developed little by little from session to
session by debate, discussion, and the inevitable revision. The new

131

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

petition was, in the main, only the rephrasing of the arguments
and complaints which had been already delivered to the bishops in
person during the conferences of the preceding session. The
Speaker informed the House that the King in person had told him
there was no need of presenting it, for he was already aware of its
contents; and had done all that could be done towards redressing
the grievances complained of. The general opinion, however,
favoured proceeding with the petition, whereupon the Speaker
said that there were many precedents of similar orders from the
Crown upon religious subjects during the reign of Elizabeth and
her predecessors. The House doubted his word and appointed a
committee to look for those precedents. In due time, the com
mittee reported through Sir Robert Cotton, the noted antiquarian,
that the Speaker was right : " I must be resolved that since, uppon
view of presidents, the King may by his ancient and iust preroga
tive limit the comons theyr bills and petitions both for tyme, person
and matter, it canne be no wrong to the liberty of the House," to
obey this particular command. After reading from the Parlia
mentary Roll of Henry VI, Richard II, and Henry IV, he con
cluded by reading a citation from the Roll of 13 Edward III,
' ' commaunding the howse of parliament to entertayne no causes in
consultation but those which were delivered to them in expresse
charge. ' ' 1 Similar precedents for the reigns of the Tudors were
produced by the Attorney General. The House was far from
appreciating the admirable honesty displayed by its committee,
and for a time, it seemed as if a majority were in favour of refusing
to obey the royal command, precedent or no precedent. Finally,
on June 18, as a compromise, the petition was read in the House
and a vote secured that it should ' c sleep. ' '

A few days later, "sundry Particulars touching the exhorbitant
Power and Practice of the High Commission (were) read and
opened out of a paper to the House," and, next day, appeared in
Fuller's hands a bill to reform the Commission on the ground that
it was illegal. The reason for this sudden attack upon that court
lay in the fact that Nicholas Fuller had some days earlier argued
in King's Bench that the ordinary procedure of the High Commis
sion was flatly contrary to the Act of 1 Elizabeth c. 1, upon which
the Commission rested, and was therefore illegal. But the pro-

i 8. P. Dom. Jae. I, XIX, no. 37.

132

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION TO REFORM

rogation of Parliament sent the battle of the Puritans and the
bishops outside the walls of the House of Commons, and we now
approach the important and exciting attempt to save the ministers
and weaken the organisation of the Church, by robbing the High
Commission of its most necessary powers through the action of
the common law courts.

133

CHAPTER V

ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION, 1607

The use of the temporal courts as a weapon against the Church
was in 1607 no new device. It had been employed during the reign
of Elizabeth in several notable instances, and, from the moment
early in 1604 when the deprivation of the ministers became a
probability, the Puritans had given a great deal of attention to
the possibilities of legal obstruction. The manifesto issued by the
leaders in August, 1604,1 had counselled the men threatened to use
every legal means they could to retain possession of their benefices ;
and Jewell had been sent to London in November expressly to
inquire of the lawyers, "what may bee done by appeale notwith-
standinge the Canons? What may be done by prohibicon either
from the King's bench or from the Chancery or Common Pleas?"
The ministers had not been slow to act. Travers had appealed at
once to the Archiepiscopal Courts from the sentence of the Bishop
of Norwich, and the faithful in all parts of England had taken up
contributions to enable him to procure the best of counsel.3 One
of the Exeter Puritans no sooner learned that he was suspended
than he set out for London, post-haste, and demanded a prohibition
from the King's Bench to forbid the bishop to proceed further
against him;4 Alexander Cooke of Lowth procured an inhibition
from the Chancery for the same purpose ;5 but neither of these writs
was sustained. Chope, who had just been presented by Lord
Rich to the rectory of South Shoebury in Essex was refused induc
tion by the Bishop, and, inasmuch as it was an excellent test case
—for the Puritans themselves had to admit that the statute of
Elizabeth and the new Thirty-sixth Canon completely covered it-
he carried it by some writ or other to the common law courts
where the decision went against the Bishop.6 There was great jubi-

i Additional MSS. 28571, f. 205. 1604-5.

28. P. Dom. Jac. I, X, no. 81. « Hatfield MSS. 103, f. 139.

a Papers found on Jewell. 6 Survey of the Booke of Common

* Proclamation of February 18, Prayer, 1610.

134

ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

lation amongst the ''godly" when the news of this success was
received, and they set to work straightway to obtain more writs of
the same kind.

Warned by the tone of the manifesto of 1604, Bancroft had
striven to provide for any such possibilities by securing opinions
from the Attorney General and the Chief Justice in December,
1604, to the effect that the bishops possessed full and sufficient
power as bishops, aside from the High Commission, to deprive the
ministers; and by forwarding to his colleagues minute directions
as to the proper legal forms to observe.1 Then, in the Star Cham
ber, in February, 1604-5,2 the judges as aTwhole— had-confirmed
the opinion already given by Coke and Fleming, that no common
law process, by prohibition or inhibition, could obstruct the epis
copal sentence. Nevertheless, the judges had already granted such
writs to the Puritans, and now issued more. The High Commis-
sion had imprisoned and fined two men, one for adultery and
contempt, and the other for abusing a bishop in public; and yet
one had been freed by a Habeas Corpus issued from the King's
Bench, and the other by a similar writ granted by the Common
Pleas. Prohibitions had been sustained on the ground that the
High Commission had no authority to fine and imprison.3 While
these instances, and the bulk of the others complained of by Ban
croft in October, 1605, were not directly connected with the
deprived ministers, the Puritans were able to use . the strained
relations, which already existed between the common law and the
ecclesiastical courts, as a weapon in their own struggle with the
Church. For they now found an ally far more powerful than the
justices of the peace and members of the House of Commons ; far
more able to supply them the aid they sought, and ready to give it
for private reasons. Some further cases of which we know little
appeared in 1606, when the deprived ministers attempted, with the
aid of the common law, to oust the men whom the bishops had put
in to fill their benefices; but they did not succeed.4 It is also clear
that the State and Church understood that something of the sort
was still going on in January, 1606-7, for Coke, just promoted in
June, 1606, to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, wrote to
Salisbury that he could learn of no process pending in the King's

1 Letter to the bishops of December 3 Ar'ticnli Cleri, Art. xxii.

22, 1604, in Wilkins, Concilia, IV, 408. * Eeport on the MSS. of Earl of

*Cro1ce's Reports, TI, 37. Cowper, T, 62. July 11, IfiOfi.

135

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Bench "to countenance the ministers unconf ormable, " and was
sure the secretary had been misinformed.1 Thus far there had
been no test case of considerable dimensions and notoriety ; most
of the writs granted by the common law judges had not been
upheld; the public opinions of the judges discountenanced such
attempts; and therefore, although the Puritans had often bragged
of great results which would soon be achieved, little had been
accomplished. But now, in the spring of 1607, a test case was at
last arranged to raise the issue in unmistakable form and to decide
the point for good and all.

The central point in the ecclesiastical fabric was, as the Puritans
had long seen, the High Commission. It alone possessed the power
to fine and imprison; it alone could cite men from all parts of
England and Wales; it alone was the mainstay of the bishops'
ordinary powers and the one force which made the every-day
administrative routine efficient. To deprive it of the power to fine
arid imprison, of the right of interfering in petty diocesan affairs,
to limit the number of commissions to two general bodies at London
and York, which would not be able to handle their great legal
business between party and party, and at the same time supervise
the local administration of the Church, had for some years been
the hope of the Puritans. The King had refused to remodel it as
desired ; no Act of Parliament to accomplish that end could be
secured ; and there now remained the hope, roused in sooth by the
attitude of the common law judges towards it, that it might be
reduced to impotence by a judicial decision. The Commission once
powerless, the deprived ministers would be reinstated; the in
efficiency of the ecclesiastical administration would become appar
ent to every one ; and the King might be induced to change the
government of the Church to Presbyterianism. At least, without
the Commission, the Church could not very well evict the Puritans
from its ranks ; and they would be reasonably free to practice their
own ideas. The conduct of this legal campaign was entrusted to
Nicholas Fuller, a barrister of Gray's Inn.

When Fuller appeared at the bar of the King's Bench in April,
1607, and desired writs of Habeas Corpus for his clients, Ladd and
Mansel, he was already a marked man. He was one of the law
yers with whom the Puritan leaders had long been in the habit of

i Hatfield MSS. 116, f. 93, Original, signed. January 8, 1606-7

136

ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

consulting; and he had already conducted cases for the ministers
and their friends in the common law courts. Besides his activity
as a lawyer, he had been a member of Parliament, and had already
made his presence felt by the Crown and by the bishops. He had
more than once defended the ministers and openly attacked the
Church in debate, and had brought in several of the most objection
able Puritan measures of the sessions of 1604 and 1606. As if all
this were not enough to render him obnoxious, he had declared
himself in favour of delaying the subsidies of which James was in
such dire need;1 he had opposed the Crown on Bate's case and
the imposition on currants f and, chief est of all, he had vigorously
attacked James's favourite scheme, the Union with Scotland.
Puller likened England to a rich pasture surrounded by a fence
and pictured the Scots as lean and hungry kine, roaming, eager-
eyed, along the boundary, seeking an opening. He dilated to the
House on the notorious poverty of the Scots, on their quarrelsome
ness and greed, and lamented the dearth of good things which
Englishmen would experience when that hungry herd from the
North had entered the rich fields by a broad and open gate. There
was not room in England for a single Scotchman, he declared.3
The fact that he expressed the sentiments of the majority of
Englishmen did not render his conclusions more palatable or
make his conduct less reprehensible in the eyes of the Scottish
King.

If the bishops and the King had unfavourable impressions of
Fuller, the High Commission had already experienced his "inso
lence." In March, 1607, just one month previous to his request
in favour of Ladd and Mansel, Fuller had barely escaped a conflict
with the Commissioners. Some twenty persons in Yorkshire had
been summoned by that court to appear at London and answer
various charges against them; they had not come, and had conse
quently been jailed for contempt, as was provided by the regular
procedure of the Commission. They had then retained Fuller as
counsel, who at once made a motion in their favour at the bar of the
Exchequer asking for a Habeas Corpus, which would have freed
them for the time at least from the Commission. He seems to
have also made a similar request in the King's Bench. In one or

1 Commons' Journals, I, 276. 2 Commons' Journals, T, 294.

s Commons' Journals, I, 334.

137

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

the other court he had hinted rather broadly, that he did not
think the Commissioners were competent judges in such matters,
and that their use of the oath ex officio seemed to him flatly illegal ;
on examination before the Commission, he had maintained his
position and was told that if he continued to express such opinions
in public, he would soon find himself in jail.1 Fuller later asserted
that he had been employed by the common law judges "to plead for
poore men imprisoned by the ecclesiasticall commissioners. ' ' 2

Fuller, therefore, must have known that he was by no means an
insignificant man, who could say what he pleased with little chance
of its being noticed by those in authority; and the leaders of his
party should have realised that a man far less well known would
have been a better manager of such a delicate and important case.
Within a month, Fuller opened the campaign by delivering in
public a scathing arraignment of the High Commission. His
speech was no chance effusion uttered in a thoughtless moment,
by a man of no standing and caught up and prosecuted by a queru
lous and tyrannical government.3 It was another of a long series
of overt attacks upon the Church by a man who had many times
demonstrated his animus and his ability to accomplish whatever he
undertook under its spur.

Thomas Ladd, Fuller's new client,4 was a merchant of Yarmouth,

' ' ' The argument of Nicholas Ful- copies: Hargrave MSS. 33, f. 117,

ler in the case of F. Lad and E. and two copies in the MSS. of the

Maunsell, his Clients. Wherein it is Marquis of Westminster) is the only

plainly proved that the Ecclesiastical trustworthy source for the dates and

Commissioners have no power, ~by ver- actual facts. It purports to be a

tue of their commission to imprison.. full report of the case and contains a

or put to the oath ex officio or fine long Latin account of the events lead-

any of his majesties subjects." Lon- ing up to Fuller's commitment by

don, 1607. 4° Reprinted, London. the High Commission, then quotes the

1641, p. 22-23. This evidence comes writ of committal in full in English,

from Fuller himself, and seems trust- then gives in Latin the consultation

worthy. But, inasmuch as the tract issued by the King's Bench, and

was published by Fuller's friends closes with some further notes of the

long after he was imprisoned, in hope case in Latin. Tt was probably pre-

of exciting public sympathy in his pared either for use at the hearing

favour, it is just possible that this before the King's Bench in Septem-

may be a distortion of a real occur- ber, 1607, at the consultation on the

ence inserted to show that the Com- prohibition, or was employed by Ho-

mission was persecuting him. bart in the hearings on the Habeas

2Hatfield MSS. 124, f. 59, Copy. Corpus in November, 1607. It is just

February or March, 1607-8. possible that it was prepared by a

3 Such has been the ordinary view newswriter and circulated for infor-
taken of Fuller's Case. matlon. In any case, it is far more

4 For this most interesting episode trustworthy than the tract entitled1
Lansdowne MSS. 1172, f. 97 (other The argument of Nicholas Fuller

138

ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

who had been tried in the ecclesiastical court at Norwich for
attending conventicle at the house of one Jackler, a nonconformist
minister, who had been deprived for his refusal to observe the
Canons of the Church. The record of Jackler 's institution at
Norwich shows that he had conformed in 1603, and possessed no
degree of any sort from any university. He was, therefore, not a
learned man. Ladd declared, in his defence, that they had held
no conventicle, inasmuch as they only met privately to go over the
sermon preached on Sunday morning by the minister of the Estab
lished Church. But there can be little doubt that those present
added statements of their own and that the meeting was, in strict
law, a conventicle. This, however, was not the issue in the case.
Ladd had made some difficulty about taking the oath ex officio, and,
after he had testified and a considerable discrepancy became
apparent in his answers, he had been summoned to Lambeth upon
a charge of perjury. There he refused to take the oath ex officio
at all unless he was first allowed to peruse the answers he had made
at Norwich, and, inasmuch as the procedure of the High Commission
made it impossible to grant this request, he was committed to
prison on March 29, 1607. Fuller's other client, Mansel, a non
conformist minister, had been arrested as one of the movers of a
petition to the House of Commons, which the Government thought
offensive, and having also refused to take the oath ex officio unless
he was allowed to see the charge against him, was likewise
imprisoned.

At this juncture, Fuller was retained as counsel for the two
prisoners and at once took charge of the case. He soon produced
from the King's Bench writs of Habeas Corpus for the two men
(April 30, 1607) and secured May 6 as a date for the hearing.
In his argument, he proceeded to prove1 to his own satisfaction

which is only an ex parte statement the actual speech he delivered, is cer-
by Fuller's own friends, which we tainly only a speech which he drew
know omits much that he admitted up (if he ever wrote it at all) after
he said, and which adds more which these two hearings, for use before
it is reasonably certain he did not say. the twelve judges in September, 1607,
i Exactly what Fuller said at these (Hatfield MSS. 124, f. 59.) The
two hearings is very difficult to dem- tract was printed in December, prob-
onstrate. The indictment of the ably without his knowledge. (Hat-
High Commission against him given field MSS. 124, f. 81.) Nevertheless,
in Lansdowne MSS. 1172, does not the main legal contentions there set
detail his speech but only recounts forth may be accepted without much
the points to be used legally against hesitation as the substance of what
him. The tract which is ostensibly he said on May 6 and June 13,

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at least, that his clients must be released, because the High Com
mission had no legal authority to imprison them. That court, he
declared, was based upon the statute of 1 Elizabeth c. 1. section
viii which gave to the commissioners only such power as the
bishops had possessed before that statute. By reference to acts
of Parliament, and by somewhat questionable deductions and
analogies from them, he demonstrated that the bishops had never
had, previous to 1559, authority to fine or imprison. The Com
mission, therefore, could possess such a power, he asseverated, only
from an act of Parliament, and the statute of 1 Elizabeth, the only
one which could legalise the exercise of such authority, did not
sanction it. He then read the Act in court and interpreted it for
the edification of his audience. Finally he proceeded to compare
the extensive powers which every one knew the Commission em
ployed with the grant of authority to them in the Act, and pointed
out, in voluminous detail and with many comments derogatory to
the Commission, the discrepancies between the two. He paid little
attention, however, to the fact that the royal Letters Patent, which
the statute did authorise, conferred on the High Commission, by
express language or by implication, every power it put in practice.
It was enough for him that the statute itself did not directly make
any such comprehensive grant.

His argument was offensive enough, but his comments1 made it
"smell to heaven." He declared that the manner of proceeding
in the Commission was "popish": that the ecclesiastical jurisdic
tion was "Anti-Christian" and "not of Christ but of Anti-
Christ"; that the power of the Commission was being used to
suppress the Sacrament and true religion. To his mind, the bishops
"did proceede in these dayes by taking an ell whereby they had
but an ynch granted them, and in examining men upon their oathes
at their discretion and indiscretion as such their dealings were now
lamentable." The oath they administered tended "to the damning
of their souls that take it." Men were imprisoned whenever the
commissioners saw fit, and "they detained them in prison as longe
as they list." Having said this and more on May 6, and finding
himself still at liberty, he took heart and, at the second hearing on
June 13. launched forth upon a further set of diatribes which

much expanded and embellished, and 1 These are to be found only In

with many significant omissions. Lansdowne MSS. 1172.

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

capped the climax of his ' ' insolence. ' ' He did not scruple to hint
that the commissioners embezzled all the fines they collected; and
were in process of extending their authority so as to embrace every
branch of criminal and civil law. The judges of the King's Bench,
before whom this remarkable argument had been delivered, debated
among themselves, but made no decision in the matter, reserving
the case for further hearing before all twelve judges. But Fuller
never argued the question further, for he was soon taken into
custody by the High Commission. His indiscretion in making such
virulent comments caused the main point which he had raised —
the illegality of the High Commission — to drop out of sight. With
it, disappeared Ladd and Mansel, whose fate we do not know.

Dr. Gardiner states1 that Fuller procured for Ladd and Mansel
a consultation, "a modified form of prohibition." There is, how
ever, no statement in any of the authorities that the court took any
action at all beyond ordering a new hearing before the assembled
judges, which, according to Fuller himself,2 was certainly com
manded, for which he prepared the speech afterwards printed, but
which was never held, inasmuch as the chief actor was himself a
prisoner when the court met in September. Furthermore, a con
sultation was not a modified form of prohibition, but the authorita
tive annulling of a prohibition by the court which had issued it.
On "consultation" with the lawyers from the court prohibited,
the judge perceived that he had issued the prohibition wrongly
and authorised the court prohibited to proceed as if no such writ
had been issued. A consultation could only follow a prohibition,
and could in no case issue, as Dr. Gardiner elsewhere infers, as an
original writ. Moreover, as Ladd was before the King's Bench on
Habeas Corpus and not upon prohibition, the court either must
remand him to prison or free him altogether: there could be no
half way procedure. Dr. Gardiner seems to have confused the
consultation issued to Fuller himself in September, or the prohibi
tion he procured in July for himself, with the action taken by the
King's Bench in Trinity Term on the Habeas Corpus granted in
April to Ladd.

The High Commission arraigned Fuller, early in July,3 upon a

1 History of England, II, 37. Parliament was prorogued. He was

2 Hatfield MSS. 124, f. 59. present in the Commons on June 19,

3 His Parliamentary privilege had 25, 26, and July 1.
protected him until July 4, when

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long list of "scandalous" things he had "factiously and falsely"
affirmed "to the slander of the Church, to the hardening of the
Papists" and "to the malicious impeachment of his Majesty's
authority in Causes Ecclesiasticall. " The case was heard before
Bancroft, the Archbishop, Ravis, the Bishop of London, and other
leading men of the High Commission. Fuller, however, had been
not less prompt than the commissioners and, before the case could
be put through the necessary legal stages preceding sentence, he
had procured a prohibition from the King's Bench. This writ,
granted by Justices Fenner and Croke in the vacation after the
close of the Trinity Term, forbade the Commission to proceed
further against Fuller, on the ground that the case should properly
be heard in the King's Bench;1 and there, pending the return of
the prohibition and argument in its defence, (which because of
the long summer vacation of the courts, could not be heard till late
in September) the matter perforce rested. Although the High
Commission could not convict Fuller, it did keep him in jail during
the intervening months at the White Lion, Southwark.

When the news of Fuller's daring and its consequences reached
James and his councillors, they were angry indeed ; and were,
besides, in a measure apprehensive of further developments. Salis
bury wrote to Sir Thomas Lake, the secretary in personal attend
ance upon the King, that Fuller's actions would end by affecting
the stability of the government — "noe monarchy beeinge able to
stand where the Churche is in anarchy." The "absurd" action of
the judges in granting such a man a prohibition for so slender a
reason had, he thought, * ' given so apt occasion to make a president
for the like mischiefe as in the effect thereof may be well resembled
to fayre fruits gathered from rotten trees."2 James, too, feared
evil results if the authority of the Commission was seriously im
peached. Constitutionally timid, the discovery in succession of

iDr. Gardiner states that Fuller paper that could hardly have been
was not imprisoned or proceeded written later than the following
against bv the High Commission till March, 1608, that he had been in jail
November: but Lansdowne MSS. 1172 nine mouths, exactly tallies with this
says explicitly that he was arraigned reading. He was certainly released
early in July, (" just after the close for good in April, 1608, and could not
of Trinity Term"') and in that same have spent nine months in jau
month secured a prohibition from the tween November, 1607, and March,
King's Bench. Here again Dr. Gar- 1608.

diner repeats the curious error that a 2 Hatfield MSS. 124, f. 135. July

prohibition and a consultation are the (?), Salisbury to Lake. Draft,
same Fuller's own statement, in a

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

Watson's Plot, Cobham's Affair, and the Gunpowder Treason, had
led him to fear an outburst of anarchy from almost any source.
' ' I praye yow, ' ' he wrote to Salisbury with his own hand somewhat
later, "forgette not Fuller's maitter that the ecclesiasticall comision
maye not be sufferid to sinke besydes the euill desairtis of the
uillaine, for this farre darre I prophecie unto you, that quhen
soeuir the eclesiasticall dignitie together with the King's gouuerne-
mente thairof shall be turnid in contempte and beginne to euanishe
in this kingdorne, the kinges heirof shall not long prosper in thaire
gouuerment and the monarchic shall fall to mine, quhiche I praye
god I maye neuer liue to see and so f airwell. ' ' x

When in due time the judges returned from the summer circuits,
and, toward the end of September, resumed their duties on the
bench at the opening of Michaelmas Term, one of the very first
matters brought up was the prohibition issued to Fuller. In view
of the importance attached to his attack on the Commission, the
judges of the King's Bench took counsel upon the prohibition with
the judges of the Common Pleas and with the Barons of the
Exchequer. The practice of the King's Bench rendered such a
writ valid to stay proceedings in the Commission only until an
argument could be had before the bar of the court upon the respec
tive rights of the two jurisdictions. Only two courses were properly
open to the judges: they could uphold the prohibition and thus
declare their sole right to adjudicate the case, which was, in fact,
what Fuller wanted; or they could issue a consultation annulling
the prohibition and giving the High Commission leave to proceed.
The latter would practically be a confession that they had acted
hastily in forbidding the Commission to proceed against Fuller.
When opinions had been exchanged, it developed that the judges
were divided: some wished to maintain the very letter of the
prohibition; others wished to annul it altogether; but, in the end,
after much argument, and after several propositions had been sub
mitted in writing for settling the difficulty, they agreed to issue a
consultation. It was a curious document, that writ of consultation,
drawn up early in October, 1607.2 In one sense it deprived the

i Hatfield MSS. 134, f . 126. Holo- hand : "The K. to me, October 19,

graph. October 19, 1607. Dr. Gar- 1607."

diner gives this date (History of 2 The consultation will be found in

England, II, 39.) as "November Latin in Lansdowne MSS. 1172, f.

But the letter is plainly en- 97. The wording in the text is an

dorsed on the back in Cecil's own attempt to render it freely in the

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Commission of authority, in another it fully recognised the whole
of its contentions. The Commission was authorised to proceed
"with all due and proper speed according to your ecclesiastical
authority against the schism, heresy, impious error or pernitious
opinions of the aforesaid Nicholas Fuller. ' ' In truth, although these
phrases seemed to deny power to proceed in the present instance
against Fuller, who indeed was accused of slander and contempt
and not of heresy and error, they nevertheless did sanction action
by the Commission, for several charges concerning heresy and
schism had been included (probably by chance) among the counts
of the indictment. In any case, if the Commissioners were the sole
legal interpreters of the language of the consultation, it would
have been plain enough, from their statement, that Fuller's views
were, to say the least, ' ' pernicious opinions. ' ' The gist of the con
sultation contained therefore nothing to hinder the Commission's
action.

Having finished the usual form of consultation, the judges added
several sentences in the nature of explanations and qualifications.
' ' Nor is there any question by us made, of the authority or validity
of the letters patent to you and to others directed nor of the
exposition of the statute of 1, Elizabeth, nor of certain scandals
or other matters which, by the Common Law and the Statutes of
this Realm of England, are to be punished or concluded." Tech
nically, of course, these phrases were not part of the consultation
and were merely declaratory of the opinions of the judges. The
innuendo therefore in the last clause that Fuller could be tried only
at common law, even for the slander of the High Commissioners,

legal English of the period. It was cer- But in this case the document is so

tainly issued late in September or early long and rambling and so devoid of

in October, before Fuller's conviction legal form that it can hardly be

by the Commission (it must be borne credited as against the one in the

in mind that he had been simply ar- Lansdowne MSS. t is not on the

raigned in July) and not, as Dr. face of it a consultation, but an argu-

Gardiner states,' in November, after ment why the consultation should con-

his conviction. Dr. Gardiner also tain certain limiting clauses. There

treats the document printed in Coke's is no proof that it was more than a

XII Reports, f. 41 as the actual con- private memorandum of Coke s own

sultation. In an article in the Eng- ideas, and there is no reason at all

lish Historical Review for October, to suppose it was ever meant to have

1903, the present writer has stated legal effect. There is just enough

his reasons for regarding as highly similarity between it and the Lans-

suspicious anything in that volume of downe paper to make it reasonably

Reports which does not fully agree certain that both refer to the same

with the evidence from other sources. event.

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

was of no legal effect ; and, if it had been, the two preceding clauses
completely nullified it, inasmuch as they declared valid the Letters
Patent and the Commissioners ' exposition of the statute of 1, Eliza
beth, both of which contained ample authority to try slanders of all
descriptions, whether against the Commission or not,1 In fact, the
consultation contained so many mutually contradictory phrases,
and so many antagonistic claims, that it could hardly be considered
to have placed a limitation upon the Commission's powers. By
refusing to support Fuller's " appeal" and thus assume jurisdiction
of the case themselves, the judges had abandoned him to the dis
cretion of the High Commission.

Despite the confused phrasing of the writ, the ecclesiastical
authorities attempted to follow its very letter and spirit, in order
to give Fuller and the judges themselves no cause for complaint.
They therefore arraigned him for schism and erroneous opinions
and probably on October 20 or 21 convicted him, fined him £200,
and sentenced him to imprisonment during pleasure.2

But Fuller had by no means exhausted the resources of the
common law, and found the judges ready to assist him in pushing
the matter still further. His counsel applied to the King's Bench
for a Habeas Corpus,3 which should force the keeper of the prison
where Fuller lay to produce him at the King's Bench bar and
state his authority for detaining him. The Habeas Corpus, issued
in the first week of November, raised a new question for the judges
to decide : was the unquestionably regular process of commitment
used by the High Commission legal? The argument over the pro
hibition had debated the respective rights of the Commission and
the King's Bench to punish Fuller for his slander of the former
court, which he had uttered in a pleading before the latter. Now,
however, Fuller brought to the fore, the precise question he had

1 Just at this time, the common wrote to Salisbury that the King was
law courts were trying to draw all ' ' exceedingly well pleased ' ' about
cases of slander before their own the "prohibition." (Hatfield MSS.
tribunals. 122, f. 150.) When Fuller's Case

2 XTT, Eeports, 44. This happened came up again it was on a Habeas
before November 14, because on that Corpus, hence this trial would seem
date Fuller's fine was granted to to have come on October 20 or 21.
John Patten of the King 's Closet. s Dr. Gardiner here inserts the fa-
State Papers Domestic, Docquet, No- mous altercation between Coke and
vember 14, 1607. On October 19 the the King. This, however, seems to
King wrote to Salisbury to bear in belong elsewhere. See infra, Book TIT,
mind Fuller's Case (Hatfield MSS. Chapter IX.

134 f. 126) and on October 23 Lake

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

already argued in the objectionable speeches which had first
embroiled him with the Commission — the right of the court to
commit him to prison at all. He made no charge that the process
used was irregular, that he was committed for a crime for which
others were not detained, or that the Commission possessed no such
authority in its Letters Patent. He virtually declared it illegal
and asked confirmation of his opinions from the King's Bench.

This movement brought him into collision with the State. Hith
erto, James and Salisbury had been interested observers of the case,
concerned lest it should take a dangerous turn. They were now
perfectly satisfied that the affair had gone far enough, and felt
that it was high time they took a hand in the matter, if they were
to prevent the discrediting of the Commission by so "euill a
uillaine" as Fuller. James considered his prerogative threatened
and, in fact, there could be no question of the truth of his belief.
Stripped of its legal technicality, Fuller's argument said nothing
less than that the Letters Patent gave the Commission a power
which the statute of 1 Elizabeth did not confer upon the King, and
which, therefore, he could not delegate to a Commission. Both
Elizabeth and James had issued such Letters Patent, and, if they
had done so, as Fuller claimed, without authority either from their
prerogative or from statute, they had committed a grave breach of
the law, and, what was more, if the contention was true, the Crown
did not possess an important ecclesiastical prerogative which it
had long exercised. James was therefore literally right in asserting
that his prerogative was at stake. While apparently arguing
merely that the High Commission had illegally imprisoned one
Nicholas Fuller, the lawyers would be, in reality, debating whether
or not the King possessed the power to create such a High Com
mission as his Letters Patent of 1605 specifically sanctioned. It
was James's steadfast opinion that "the absolute prerogative of
the Crown" was "no subject for the tongue of a lawyer," nor was
1 ' lawful to be disputed. ' ' 1 He, therefore, directed Salisbury to

1 Works of James I, (London, in this manner from my Lorde of

1616) p. 550. The case was duly ap- Canterburie round before the judges

predated and followed outside the of the King's Bench ... the Lord

court. On November 22, William Archbyshopp I warrant you will bring

Walton met George Knight at Pauls: the same therethence againe in spight

"Howe nowe Mr. Walton, said of their teethes. . . . His Grace had

Knight, do you thinke to carry away allready committed one Fuller to the

the cause between you and Mr. Ponde Fleete and so would them (i. e. the

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

take charge of the defence of "his honour," and see that no argu
ment took place over his prerogative; Hobart, the Attorney Gen
eral, was ordered to argue against Fuller in support of the High
Commission, and to prevent any dispute over its legality or ille
gality.

On Tuesday, November 24, 1607, the warden of the Fleet Prison
brought Fuller to the King's Bench bar as the Habeas Corpus
required.1 The court room was thronged with an interested audi
ence, for the case had by this time attained a certain amount of
notoriety. When the warden had presented the warrant for
Fuller's commitment and when the document had been read, Fuller
declared that he wished to except to it, "both in matter and forme. "
In the first place, he had not spoken the words with which it
charged him: secondly, that, if he had, he uttered them merely
by "way of an argument" for his client, a fact which he thought
ought to be taken into account, and of which he found no mention
in the return. It seemed essential to him, he said, that the return
should state the truth and that it should do so in proper form. He
therefore excepted to it as insufficient. Hobart, the Attorney
General, argued on the other hand, that the King's Bench had no
authority to examine the facts of the case, in order to determine
whether or not they justified any action at all, for that court had
recognised, in its own consultation, that it had no right to try the
substance of the charge against Fuller, and therefore no jurisdic
tion to decide whether or not the facts of the case supported the
warrant. If the warrant alleged a good prima facie cause of im
prisonment and had been made out in due form, it was sufficient in
law, he declared, to keep Fuller in the Fleet. In fact, unless it
showed on its face that the Commission had proceeded against him
in a manner forbidden by the consultation, the judges must declare
it valid. He then compared the return with the consultation and
showed beyond doubt that the two agreed. With this argument,
which was in truth good law, the judges were satisfied, and
remanded Fuller to prison. In their opinions, wrote Salisbury to
James, they added "larg profeshions how much it became them in

Judges of the King's Bench) if they a. Salisbury to the King. Holo-

would not grant a consultation. ' ' graph draft, corrected. This was the

Walton 's Deposition. State Papers report sent off that evening to James,

Domestic, Jac. I, XXVIII, no. 94. who was outside London, hunting,
i Ilatfield MSS. 124, f. 137 b, 138

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duty to eschew any blemishe to such a commission," and declared
that they believed he had uttered all the words charged against
him, and that he ought to be punished for such an offence. Fuller
was completely defeated, but he was not yet overwhelmed. He said
that he had been without counsel to defend him and begged for a
new hearing> where he might be privileged to have lawyers to speak
on his behalf. After a good deal of hesitation, the judges granted
the request, expressing however their surprise at his continued
intractability and their hopes that, when he returned, he would
make a complete submission, instead of aggravating his offence by
continued obstinacy.

The judicial apprehension of further trouble from Fuller was
shared by James and Salisbury, both of whom believed that too
much consideration had already been shown so graceless a rogue.
To them, the writs of Habeas Corpus to Ladd and Mansel, the
prohibition and consultation, and then the Habeas Corpus to Fuller
himself, seemed to point either to an opinion among the judges
that the High Commission was illegal, or to the judges' desire to
expand their jurisdiction regardless alike of the character of the
cause they espoused or of the effect of their acts upon the welfare
of the Church and the safety of the State. When, therefore, after
refusing to maintain three such writs in succession, the judges
allowed Fuller a new hearing and gave him, contrary to all com
mon law precedent, the privilege of counsel, James was frankly
puzzled. He strongly suspected them of some purpose of their own
which boded ill to him and his prerogative, and which they would
stick at nothing to accomplish. For the nonce, however, he found
scant confirmation of his fears.

The second hearing took place on Thursday, November 26.1
Quick to appreciate the legal situation, Fuller saw that he must
attack not the substance but the form of the warrant whose validity
was the present issue ; and he was keen enough to direct his counsel
to cling fast to their legal exception and say nothing about the
illegality of the Commission or the substance of his case before that
court. His lawyers therefore argued that the warrant, to be good,
must show on its face that the Commission possessed from the King
sufficient authority to fine and imprison Fuller. According to the

1 Our sole authority is again Salis- by Salisbury himself. Hatfield MSS.
feury to the King. Draft corrected 123, f. 59. November 28, 1607.

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

return, the Commission had imprisoned Fuller because of schism
and heresy and had left it to be assumed that it possessed sufficient
authority for the action. Although there could be no doubt,
continued the lawyers, that it had the authority, and although
the judges themselves might know it, they could not take legal
cognisance of it unless that fact were expressed in the return. With
this argument, which was certainly specious, the judges were visibly
impressed. In his reply, Hobart met the objection by stating, that
the contents of royal letters patent and of the statutes of the
realm were public and did not need to be pleaded specially in court
or mentioned in every act performed under their authority, for it
was part of the judges' duty to keep themselves informed of the
contents of such documents. This argument won the day and the
judges remanded Fuller to prison for good.

But they wove into their speeches various statements of political
theory which, with Fuller's pamphlet later published, mark the case
as important in the annals of English constitutional history. They
declared that "they were one of the King's strongest armes," and
dilated upon their own importance and dignity. They hoped, they
said, that all men who had spoken disrespectfully of their authority
would "learn and understand" that the temporal courts possessed
a perfect right to grant prohibitions, and intended to continue
issuing them whenever they saw fit. Their intention to grant them,
in instances like Fuller's, was expressed in the declaration that
all prohibitions issued in the past had been properly granted.

When the news reached James, who was hunting outside London,
he was at once pleased and displeased. So satisfactory was the
settlement of the case to him that he sent quite profuse thanks to
all who had laboured to bring it about, especially to Chief Justice
Coke of the Common Pleas, who had been playing the mediator
between the Commission and the King's Bench. But he declared
and "bownd it with an oath that the judges had don well for them-
selfes as well as for him for that he was resolued if they had don
otherwise and mainteyned their Habeas Corpus he wold haue com
mitted them. And uppon that point which your lo : mentioneth of
their declaration that they wold grant prohibitions he spake angrily
that by their leaves they should not use their libertie therein but
be prescribed."1

iHatfield MSS. 123, f. 55. No- holograph; and Hatfield MSS. 123,
vember 27, 1607. Lake to Salisbury, f. 66, November 30, 1607, same to same.

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Fuller returned to the Fleet Prison, and soon began to try what
could be accomplished toward freeing himself by his own submis-
siveness and his friends' importunity. After the second hearing,
he had intimated to Hobart while still in the court room, that "if
he had offended" he was sorry and craved pardon, but was at once
assured that such conditional submissions were of no avail, and that
a complete retraction of his words, without "ifs" and reservations,
was required. Within a week after his recommitment, he forwarded
to the Archbishop a submission which seemed at the moment likely
to satisfy all parties.1 Further to prepossess the authorities in his
favour, his wife journeyed down to Newmarket over the bad roads,
to present a petition to James on her husband 's behalf, which Lake
and other officials persuaded her to redraft into less enigmatical
shape. She presented the altered petition to James, just as he was
starting out on the hunt, and he, in good humour at the prospect
of his favourite sport, received it good-naturedly, remarking that
he was glad Fuller was penitent.2 The lady returned to London to
importune Salisbury in the same manner.

Fuller himself was, however, the chief obstacle to his own free
dom, for, after all, he refused to take the final submission required
of him. Moreover, his wife and friends, for some inexplicable
reason, secured from him a retraction of his first submission,3 and
then, as if they had not thereby placed him in sufficient jeopardy,
proceeded with inexplicable stupidity or rashness, to publish, about
the middle of December, some of his letters written since his
confinement, and a pamphlet, which purported to be the very
speech for which he had been fined and imprisoned by the High
Commission. If they believed that these documents would start a
wave of public opinion in his favour, which would compel the
Government to release him, they totally miscalculated the number
of adherents then in England in favour of Fuller's views, and
failed to see the hopelessness of reaching them. In truth, they
only placed him in greater danger, for, while no one gave serious
attention to the pamphlet, the Government visited its wrath upon

1 Hatfield MSS. 123 f. 90. Decem- cause it had been remitted. State
ber 9, 1607. Holograph. Lake to Papers Domestic, Docquet, December
Salisbury. 10, 1607.

2 Hatfield MSS. December 9, 1607. 3 Chamberlain to Carleton. .Tanu-
123, f. 90. On December 10, Fuller's ary 5, 1607-8, State Papers, Domestic,
fine was taken from Patton, to whom Jac. I, XXXI, f. 2.

it had been granted, apparently be-

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

Fuller. He insisted, however, that he knew nothing of the printing
of the speech, and, after examining him thoroughly, the Attorney
General concluded that he was telling the truth.1 Then, to show
his penitence, Fuller at once wrote to the Archbishop and to the
Company of Stationers to urge them to suppress the pamphlet,2
and further claimed (as was evident enough) that it was not the
speech he delivered, but another he intended to use. However that
may have been, the pamphlet stated on its title page, that it was the
very speech for which he had been fined and imprisoned, but it
contained none of the disrespectful words about the High Com
mission which had really caused his punishment, and added a great
many highly offensive statements regarding the royal prerogative
which it seems fairly certain he never uttered before either the
High Commission or the King's Bench. In general, moreover, it
portrayed Fuller as a learned and conservative lawyer, seeking
truth and justice, and as a valiant defender of English liberty. In
fact, it made him seem like a worthy and patriotic man oppressed
by a tyrannical government, which he had provoked by revealing
its misdeeds.

He was represented as declaring that ''the lawes of England are
the High Inheritance of the Realme by which both the King and
the subjects are directed. Without lawes, there would be neither
King nor inheritance in England, which lawes ... are so fitted to
this people and this people to them as it doth make a sweet harmonic
in the government. ' ' The law, continued this remarkable document,
which is equally important and equally a landmark whether Fuller
wrote it or not, ' ' admeasureth the King's prerogative so as it shall
not extend to hurt the inheritance of the subjects. And the law
doth restraine the liberall words of the King 's grant for the benefit
both of the King and the subjects and to the great happiness of the
Realme, especially when the Judges are men of courage, fearing
God, as is to be proved by many cases adiudged in these Courts of
King's Bench and Common Pleas, which Courts are the principal
preservers of this high inheritance of the law." The King might

1 Hobart to Salisbury. Hatfield of ' ' any of the books ' ' and later

MSS. 124, f. 81, undated. Dr. Gar- mentions twelve; whereas Whyte, on

diner places this letter in January, whose letter in Lodge, Illustrations,

1607-8, but it seems to belong here. Ill, 344, Dr. Gardiner depended,

Chamberlain says distinctly that Ful- mentions but one book,

ler 's friends published several books 2 Fuller 's Submission, Hatfield MSS.

in December, and Hobart speaks here 124, f. 59

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not dispense "with the common law nor alter the same . . . nor
put the subjects from their inheritance of the law . . . which was
always accompted one of the great blessings of this land, to have
the law the meatyeard and the Judges the measures. For in all
well governed commonwealths, Religion and Justice are the two
principal pillars wherein the power of God appeareth." These
phrases alone suffice to give this pamphlet and Fuller's case a place
in English constitutional history, for these are among the very
first enunciations, if not the first, of that great theory which Hake-
will was to use so effectively in the case of Impositions in 1610,
and which St. John was to render ever memorable in the great case
of Ship Money in 1637.

Whatever may be its historical importance, it clearly was printed
to give an entirely false view of Fuller, and of his treatment by
the High Commission, for he was by no means innocent of repre
hensible conduct; and the High Commission had not treated him
with unusual severity. Indeed, in view of the provocation, Fuller
was treated with much leniency. None of the letter writers of the
time would have been surprised to have seen him "shrewdly
handled," but he was allowed to pay his fine about December 30,1
and, after some further trouble over the form of his submission,
was released on January 8, 1607-8. 2 Soon after, a new book
appeared "on the discipline of the Church" which the Government
suspected emanated from him, and, therefore, January 20 found
him a close prisoner of the Privy Council in the custody of the
Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral.3 Late in February or early in March,
he drew up another submission* which was apparently satisfactory,
for about April 10, he was released under bonds to secure his good
behaviour, and licensed to practice at the bar till his case had been
heard in the Star Chamber.5 In July following the matter was
not yet concluded, and in August was still dragging along.6

1 Chamberlain to Carleton. Decem- * This is connected with the paper
ber 30, 1607, State Papers Domestic, in Hatfield MSS. 124, f. 59.

James I, XXVIII, f. 128. Remitted » Additional MSS. 11,402, Abstract

December 10, the fine seems to have of Privy Council Register, under the

been reimposed after the appearance date April 10, 1608. The original

of his books. Register is lost.

2 Chamberlain to Carleton, State 6 Notes by Bacon, July 25, 1608.
Papers, Domestic, James I, XXXI, f. James Spedding, Life and Letters of
4. January 8, 1607-8. Francis Bacon, IV, 53; August 6,

3 Lodge, Illustrations, III, 255. 1608; Ibid., IV, 95.
Hatfield MSS. 124, f. 59.

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ATTACK UPON THE HIGH COMMISSION

The attack upon the High Commission had failed, and had failed
largely because of Fuller's rashness and intemperate language.
The courts had already decided cases against the High Commission
on very similar pleas, but what Fuller and his friends wanted
was a spectacular decision in a perfectly clear case that should
settle the matter once for all ; that should break the power of the
Commission as an administrative arm of the Church; and thus
rob the ecclesiastical arch of its keystone. By curious poetic justice,
he had defeated himself. The judges had been willing enough to
decide in his favour if they could have done so upon some decent
legal grounds, but he continually forced the issue to an extreme,
and abandoned the pleas that might have saved him. Had he put
forth his original argument against the Commission as temperately
and lucidly as it was stated in the published pamphlet, had he
omitted his animadversions upon the bishops, and his views upon
political theory, he would have forced them to give him a serious
trial where the issue would have appeared on its merits, and would
not have allowed the Commission to convict him for misdemeanours
which involved no principle at all, required no ability to state, and
could not be explained or denied, once they had been committed.
His speech-making and letter writing, and months in jail, had not
advanced his cause one whit, and had, in fact, hurt it by adding
one more to the growing total of cases of "factious and seditious"
Puritans

153

CHAPTER VI

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

While the High Commission was struggling to punish Fuller,
Bancroft had been contending, in another capacity, with men who
were, in their way, even more obstinate than he. James had en
listed the Archbishop's sagacity and administrative skill in the
erection of Episcopacy in Scotland; to which the Presbyterian
ministers had objected so vigorously that the King had summoned
to London eight of the most prominent to explain their conduct.
In the fall of the year 1606, they duly appeared and proceeded
to debate with James and Bancroft, during the succeeding winter
and spring, the complex problems of Scottish ecclesiastical adminis
tration and constitutional development, which had been ripening
for at least ten years. There are few subjects more instructive
and suggestive to the student of the ecclesiastical history of Ban
croft's time, than the quarrels between James and the Kirk north
of the Tweed. There appear similar types of men, the same forces,
the identical theories of government and conduct which we have
already been studying in England; but, in the sister kingdom, a
different environment and the vast dissimilarity between the po
sition of the Crown in England and of the Monarchy in Scotland,
caused what was buried at London beneath the surface to be openly
espoused at Edinburgh, with an arrogance and audacity only pos
sible in men of the seventeenth century. Instead of viewing the
forlorn attempt to erect within the Church, in the face of a power
ful opposition from State and Church, forms of discipline entirely
alien to it, we find a strife between a strong Presbyterian autoc
racy, already firmly entrenched, with a royal government made
weak by the power of the local nobles, and by its inability to main
tain the public peace among the quarrelsome northerners.

Thus, we have the extremely interesting and instructive spec
tacle of the Presbyterian party when the tables were turned. We
left the English Puritans insisting that the Canons of 1604 must
be confirmed by Parliament (that is, by the civil authority) before

154

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

they could be binding upon any one; and we find the Scotch minis
ters declaring warmly that the vote of the Kirk needed no con
firmation by King or assembly to bind every man in Scotland.
To the English Puritan, the use of the penalties of excommunica
tion for contumacy by the ecclesiastical courts, was contrary to the
law of God, according to whose Word no such penalty could be
countenanced; yet their Scotch brethren were declaring as firmly,
in even more strident and insistent tones, that the God-given
weapon of the clergy over the laity was the right of excommunica
tion. Where the English disciplinarians were eager to relegate
certain ecclesiastical offenses to the temporal courts, and insisted
that no minister could be deprived of his right of appeal to them,
the Scotch Presbyterians hotly contended, in the face of the King
and all the powers of State, that the civil authority had no right
to try a clergyman for any offence, until he had been convicted
and degraded by the Kirk.

While the complete accuracy of these parallels is somewhat
marred by the difference in attitude of the English and the Scotch
toward the ordinary legal tribunals, — the English respecting their
authority, while the Scotch ordinarily despised it, — the comparison
is not without its value, and shows that circumstances do alter
cases.

As their books amply demonstrate, both Bancroft and James
were much influenced in their attitude toward the English Puri
tans, by the deeds of the latter 's Scotch cousins. The history of
Calvinism in Geneva and Scotland was sufficiently similar to lead
any one, familiar with its course, to believe that in England the
same ideas and doctrines were trying to express themselves in the
same characteristic ways. The history of the Classis movement
furnished English Churchmen with what they considered to be
more than a foreboding of this development. Indeed, no one can
hope to understand the attitude of the English Churchmen toward
the English Disciplinarians without bearing in mind their ex
periences with Presbyterianism and its advocates north of the
Tweed.

The quarrel between the King and the Kirk was of long stand
ing, of great depth, and of nearly commensurate bitterness.1 Under

1 The chief authorities for this edited from manuscripts in the Li-
chapter are (a) The Autobiography brary of the Faculty of Advocates
and Diary of Mr. James Melvill, as and the University of Edinburgh, by

155

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

the minor points of dispute, about which the debate had raged,
lay that most fundamental of all questions — who should rule in
Scotland, the King or the ministers ? The issue did not lie between a
Kirk wholly independent of the State and a Kirk wholly domi
nated by the State. Neither James nor his clergy could conceive
of a separation of theology and politics. The real question was,
which of the two should hold the preponderating influence over the
combined forces of Church and State. And each party started
from the unassailable premise (in its own eyes) that, in its own
ascendancy was enshrined the future hope of Scotland. What
counsels could be better for a state to follow, demanded the minis
ters, than the commands of God? Who was so fit to interpret and
deliver His Commands as the chosen ministers of His Word?
James, on the other hand, considered that a theological training
was not the best preparation for a negotiation with France or
Spain, or for the quelling of a border feud. To his mind, the
ministers, as men unskilled in worldly things, should accept the
guidance of the King, whose business it was to understand such
matters.

The clash was irreconcilable: neither would yield. There are
suggestive resemblances between the Emperor, barefooted in the
snow at Canossa, and James humbled by the Edinburgh ministers
in 1596; between the claims of the preachers to immunity from
the civil tribunals and the pretensions of Thomas a Becket. Both
parties were in the grip of forces they did not comprehend which
had been gathering strength for centuries. Neither was at fault.
There is something noble to us, in the staunchness with which
each side maintained its position, but baseness, brutality, and big
otry are also plainly visible in their methods.

The issue, which Melvill and Bancroft were about to argue, was

Kobert Pitcairn, for the Wodrow So- Calderwood, edited from the original
ciety (1842), 2 volumes. James Mel- Manuscript by Rev. Thomas Thom-
vill was the nephew of the more fa- son, for the Wodrow Society, Edin-
mous Andrew, and the two were wit- burgh, 1842-1849. Calderwood wrote
nesses and participators in most of shortly after 1620, was aided in col-
the events described. While undoubt- lecting documents and letters by the
edly biased and full of prejudice General Assembly and by many in-
against episcopacy, it must be ad- fluential individuals, and made a most
mitted that Melvill made a deter- valuable collection. His own corn-
mined effort to be impartial, and has ments are seldom of much value or
done justice to his enemies with a authority. The best modern account
rare magnanimity, (b) The History is A. Lang's History of Scotland, II.
of the KirTc of Scotland, by Mr. David

156

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

clearly outlined in 1596. The Second Book of Discipline declared:
"The ministers exercise not the civil jurisdiction but teach the
magistrate how it should be exercised according to the word;"
and to the discipline of the Kirk, the magistrate shall "submit
himself, if he transgresses in matters of conscience and religion."
This might have been well enough, had not the preachers allowed
themselves a very wide latitude indeed in deciding what fell within
the catagory of "conscience and religion." Besides the right of
instructing the magistrate in the duties of his office, and the
privilege of punishing him "as a Christian and not as a King,"
if he should fail in their performance, the ministers declared them
selves the ambassadors of our Blessed Lord, asserted that their sole
instructions were found in the Scriptures, and that only for a
breach of those commands could they be called to account under
the civil laws. Of that breach of interpretation, only "the pro
phets," (the other ministers) could judge. The self -constituted
Committee of Public Safety, composed of Commissioners of the
Kirk, declared in 1596, that the preachers were "answerable"
only to Christ, and were ' ' not to be controlled or discharged by any
other." Some few weeks previous to this declaration, Andrew
Melvill, in an audience with James, had grasped the royal sleeve,
very likely with no small vigour, and had told the angry King that
he was "God's silly vassal." Two Kings reigned in Scotland,
declared he, Christ and James, and Christ's deputies were the
ministers of His Word, whose advice the King must follow far
oftener than that of his "devilish and most pernicious" lay ad
visers. James never forgot that moment when he was rudely
shaken by the stalwart professor,1 as he also remembered for many
a day the time when another preacher termed him "an irresolute
ass."

Applying these principles, the clergy claimed the right to sum
mon the Kirk Session and Assemblies, pass laws and promulgate
them without the assent of the King, and even in the face of his
commands. Likewise, they arrogated the right to enforce those
laws themselves, for "the power of excommunication," wrote
Melvill, to Beza in 1578,2 "rested with the ministers alone; and
civil penalties, according to the custom of our country, accompany
the sentence." Their claims extended even to the right of call-

i Melvill, Diary, 370-371. 2 M 'Crie, Life of Melvill I, 202.

157

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

ing upon the civil arm of the State to enforce the decision of the
Kirk against the King himself. Bruce of Edinburgh even went
so far, in an assembly convoked by the clergy in open opposition
to the King 's commands, as to order those present ' ' to hold up their
hands, vow and swear to defend the present state of religion
against all opponents whatsoever." l

The King's platform was also promulgated in 1596. 2 The
preachers were not to treat of state affairs in their sermons; nor
convoke the General Assembly of the Kirk without royal assent;
nor attempt to enforce the acts of the Kirk until they had received
his ratification. Further, they were not to try in Kirk Session
cases properly assigned to the civil and criminal courts by the law
of the land. James was fond of dialectics, and would have greatly
liked to win the theological battle against the ministers, but even
he appreciated the necessity of securing, somehow or other, the
administrative control of the Kirk.

Two years after his accession to the English throne, occurred
an incident which opened the way for a new attempt to introduce
Episcopacy into Scotland. The "golden law" of 1592, on which
Presbyterianism in Scotland then rested, had declared that the
Kirk Assembly had a right to meet yearly, provided the King or
his Commissioners were present just before its dissolution, to ap
point a day for its next session.3 An Assembly had been duly
appointed to meet in the summer of 1605 at Aberdeen, but, shortly
before the day set, James had forbidden its meeting; and, hearing
that some nineteen ministers were assembling despite his com
mands, sent Straiten of Laureston to disperse them. The preachers
were determined to hold the Assembly in order to preserve the
chain of continuity; but the moderator of the last Assembly was
not present, as he should have been, to open the new session, and
the Royal Commissioner declared (and the preachers denied)
that, the day before the meeting, he had commanded them by pub
lic proclamation to renounce their contemplated action. They did
meet, however, chose a moderator, and then setting a day for the
next session, quietly left Aberdeen.4 James was furiously angry
and ordered them tried by the Council; and so raised the real
issue between himself and the Kirk, which was by no means

iCalderwood, History, V, 512. Ill, 541.

2Melvill, Diary, 383-4; 412. * Calderwood, VI, 278-284.

3 Acta Parliament orum Scotorum.

158

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

the royal powers connected with the prorogation of general as
semblies.

James was determined to obtain an influence in the affairs of the
Kirk, and to this end, he desired to introduce bishops into Scot
land. The idea of bishops was evidently not a discovery of his,
nor yet of Richard Bancroft, nor of William Laud. Bishops were
first established in Scotland, after the Reformation, in 1572 when
James was seven years old, and while Bancroft was still tutoring
lads at Cambridge for fellowship examinations. These "Tulchari
Bishops," with incomes but with little power, had lasted till 1581,
when they gave way before the rising power of the Kirk during
the minority of James; had been restored to power in 1584; and
were finally abolished in 1592 when Presbyterianism was firmly
established. Then, after the stormy events of 1596 and the King's
ultimate victory, he harked back to the old idea, and succeeded in
1599 in securing the appointment of a few bishops who were to
be Lords of Parliament with full privileges, but who possessed not,
one penny of income and no jurisdiction. To the ministers, the
King's attempts to prorogue assemblies and to secure power over
them, were only preliminary steps to the introduction of the
" devilish seed" of bishops. This was the situation when Bancroft
approached the Scotch problem in 1608. Bishops there were, but
without income or power; the Kirk and the King were at swords'
points, nominally over the rights of assemblies, but in reality over
the concealed issue of the attempt of the King to secure a control
ling legal influence in the Kirk.

The attempt to punish the ministers for their conduct at Aber
deen produced another issue, which was also old and of grave
importance. When summoned before the Privy Council for Scot
land, they one and all denied that the Council possessed any juris
diction over them or had any right to convict them of an eccle
siastical offence. Melvill had practically raised the same point in
1584; Black had declined the Council's jurisdiction in 1596 in pre
cisely the same manner and for much the same reasons. James
saw that the opposition must be crushed: if the ministers were
not amenable to the Privy Council, they were freed from all re
straint whatever and might do as they pleased. Of course, he
failed to see that they refused to be tried by the Privy Council
because they did not believe that their trial could possibly be im-

159

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

partial, and, for that very same reason, he was himself entirely
unwilling to allow the case to go before the Synod of Fife. Neither
side could trust the other, and there was no third party to whom
they could appeal ; whatever the decision was, one or the 'other
would certainly dislike it. The King accused them of high treason
for refusing the jurisdiction of the Council, and early in 1606 the
case came up for trial.1

The Earl of Dunbar was sent to Scotland as Royal Commissioner
to secure a conviction, and his doings are related by the Advocate
General of Scotland, Sir Thomas Hamilton, with convincing
naivete. The Earl explained to the judges ' ' the undoubted favour
which they micht expect by doing thair dewtie," and the "most
certane disgrace and puneisment" awaiting them if they did not
support the King's contention. And, finding "the chief peril to
consist in the want of an honest assise," he "was compelled to
cause his own particular and private kinsmen and friends to make
the most part of the jury." Mr. James Forbes, one of the ac
cused, was not one whit behind him in his attempt to influence the
jury by undue means instead of by evidence,2 for his speech was
not an appeal to the law, but ' ' ane maist grave admonitioune, with
horribill threatenings, " of the judgment of God which would fall
upon the jury if they decided against him and his brethren. He
told at length the story "of the Oath and Covenant which Joshua
and the people made with the Gibeonites, which, because Saul,
King of Israel, did break and violate, long after his death the
Lord forgot it not, but plagued the land in the days of David,
till all the sons of posterity of Saul were taken and hanged."
This he applied to the King, and thereon, "directing the admon-
itioun, and threitening most terribill, maide all the heireris (hear
ers) astonischit and their haires to stand!" "So take this to
heart," he concluded, "as ye will be answerable to God in that

i Calderwood, VI, 374, ff. ; Melvill, century Scotch is puzzling to most

Diary; John Bow, History of the readers.

KirTc. The long letter of Sir Thomas 2 Forbes 's speech is given by Mel-
Hamilton to James, which is an ex- vill, Diary, 624-5, and also by Calder-
cellent description of the trial, is wood, VI, 382-386; these accounts
printed in Beriah Botfield's Original substantially agree, probably because
Letters Relating to the Ecclesiastical the latter had full use of the former '&
Affairs of Scotland, I, 31-33. Most Diary, and did not scruple to copy
of the long quotations throughout verbatim from it without acknowl-
this chapter have been rendered in edgment.
modern English because sixteenth

160

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

dreadful day of judgment; to which we appeal if you wrongfully
condemn us." The jury were so frightened, that, despite the fact
that they were Dunbar's own relatives, he had much ado to drag
from them a verdict of guilty, even by the majority which satis
fied the Scotch law. Thus, the ministers were convicted and were
exiled, departing by boat on a dark and rainy night, to the sound
of the one hundred twenty-third Psalm, and the weeping of their
friends on the shore.

The chief ministers vanquished, the Parliament, which met in
July,1 finally provided the bishops with incomes and estates, after
a great deal of "wire pulling" among the nobles, the upshot of
which was that the estates of the bishops were restored, on con
dition that a very considerable part be assigned to various temporal
lords. In addition, the King was declared "soverane monarch,
over all persons, estats, and causes, both spirituall, and temporall, "
and an oath of allegiance, modelled on the Elizabethan oath of
supremacy of 1559, was provided.2 The bishops, who had votes
in Parliament before, had now obtained incomes : whether jurisdic
tion and authority could be also provided remained to be seen.
Melvill declared with scorn that they were "the Prince's led
horse;" that "inasmuch as he had made them they must bee at
his direction to doe what liketh him."3 A diligent search fails
to uncover any direct evidence that Bancroft, or any English
churchman, was responsible for the base corruption of the Assise
that convicted the ministers in 1606; for the "wire pulling" at the
Parliaments and Assemblies of these years; or for the servility
of the new bishops to their royal master. Bancroft's work was
confined to originating the scheme by which Episcopacy was grad
ually established, and to the care of the administrative details
which became necessary in connection with the appointment of
the new officers, the management of their estates, and the extent
of their powers. James Nicholson "was now (1606) almost the
onelie great conseller in all these maters" in Scotland, declares,

1 Calderwood, VI, 485-551. so there is none whose standing is

2 Calderwood, VI, 495. so slippery, when your Majesty shall
sM'Crie, Life of Melvill, II, 215. frown, as we: for at your Majesty's

Gladstones, one of the Bishops, wTote nod, we must either stand or fall. ' '
August 31, 1612, to James: "No See also M'Crie's Life of Melvill,
estate can say that they are your II, 218 note.
Majesty's creatures, as we may say,

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Calderwood,1 but we find him in close touch with Bancroft.2
Bancroft found plenty to occupy his time, for, toward the end
of August, eight ministers arrived in response to the King's sum
mons to appear and answer for their conduct and their opinions.3
The head of the deputation was Andrew Melvill, "a bold, plain,
free-speaking man, and of an hot and fiery spirit, sparing no
flesh," as Row, who knew him, declared.4 Melvill and Bancroft
had previously disagreed anent the famous sermon of 1588, and
the description of Scotland in Bancroft's Dangerous Positions;
and the Scotchman, at least, had been nursing his wrath for a long
time. He was the chief leader of the Presbyterians, although at
that time he did not hold a pulpit, but was, instead, the head of
Aberdeen University. With him came his nephew, James, and
six other influential men. As soon as Bancroft learned of their
arrival, he sent to invite them to stay at Lambeth; and the Arch
bishop of York, by a similar invitation, hastened to equal his
courtesy ; but the ministers said that they had come to wait upon the
King and would go nowhere until they had seen him.5 Saturday,
September 19, they saw the King at Hampton Court immediately
after dinner, and were graciously received and soon dismissed.
Next day, by royal request, they listened to a sermon by Bishop
Barlow (whose account of the Hampton Court Conference had
already prejudiced them against him), upon the "Antiquitie and
Superioritie of Bishops, ' ' 6 for the King was determined to leave
no stone unturned to accomplish their conversion. After dwelling
on the good that bishops "had done, did and might doe in the
Church of God," Barlow illustrated his discourse by a lengthy
account of the life and services of the present Archbishop, whom
he praised as an embodiment of the true Christian minister. This
reference roused Melvill's ire, and he forthwith composed a Latin
epigram, whose pith was contained in its last line, "Did Barlo

1 Calderwood, VI, 593, Episcopacy is scanty, and that our

2 Bancroft to James I, June 26, best evidence comes from the state-
1606. ments of the ministers that he and

Botfield 's Original Letters relating the Earl of Dunbar were responsible

to the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Scot- for its establishment.

land, I, 54-55. This spelling can 3 Calderwood, VI, 559.

hardly be Bancroft 's own. We have * Eow, Historic of the Kir~k of Scot-

here probably a copy of the original land, 285.

made by a Scotchman. It must be con- & Calderwood, VI, 559.

fessed that the direct evidence of 6 Calderwood, VI, 567.
Bancroft 's connection with Scotch

162

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

paint a pastor or a wolf that does devoure ? " 1 Next day, the King
received them in private2 and said that he had called them to ex
plain their conduct in regard to the pretended assembly at Aber
deen, and to confer about the manner in which ''an orderly and
peaceable" General Assembly could be held, "to set all things in
quietness and good order." James Melvill spoke for the eight
ministers, and after some complimentary words addressed to the
King, asked for time to consider an answer. Some further infor
mal conversation on various points followed, and they were at last
dismissed in good humour. Next day, they heard another sermon,
this time upon "Obedience;" saw James touch children to cure
the "King's evil," and dined in one of the small rooms near the
King's apartments, where they agreed upon their answers to the
two points propounded on the previous day.

James received them3 in the midst of an assembly of the bishops
and chief nobles, both English and Scotch, with Bancroft in the
post of honour at his right, and Prince Henry on his left. The
King, as usual, opened the meeting with a speech, and then asked
the Scotch nobles and bishops whether they considered the As
sembly at Aberdeen lawful and the proceedings of the ministers
justifiable. They all replied in the negative. Then James turned
to Andrew Melvill and asked his opinion, who, says his nephew's
account, spoke "all his mind in his own manner, roundly, soundly,
fully, freely, fervently, almost the space of an hour," and refused
in the end to pass judgment on the Assembly. The others followed
to the same effect, speaking, says Calderwood,4 on their knees be
fore the King, but speaking "freely, to the admiration of the
English." Then Andrew Melvill "brake out in his owne manner,"
declared the ministers entirely innocent of any crime, upbraided
Sir Thomas Hamilton, the Lord Advocate, for his favour to the
Papists, alluding to him as Karrj-jropos TOJV adeAffiv. ' What is yon
he says, ' ' exclaimed James to Bancroft. ' ' I thinke he is calling him
out of the Revelatioun, the Antichrist; nay, by God, he calleth

1 Bow, Historie of the KirTc of Scot- bered that Melvill was present at all
land, 236. The poem as a whole is of these events.

too coarse to be reprinted. When the * Calderwood, VI, 572. Melvill,

sermon was printed the passage about 658, ff.

Bancroft was omitted. 4 Calderwood, VI, 576.

2 Melvill. 654. It should be remem-

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him the verie devill." Up rose the King and left the room, with
a curt * ' God be with you, Sirs. ' ' 1

A few days later, Bishop Andrews levelled at the ministers one
of his brilliant sermons 2 and on September 29 Andrew and James
Melvill attended a celebration of the feast of St. Michael, at St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, on which occasion Andrew composed
a celebrated epigram for which he later was called to account.3

The four sermons preached to the Scotchmen had made no
visible impression, and Bancroft essayed, on October 6, to accom
plish, by private expostulation and tact, what the public arguments
had not compassed.4 Instead of trying to shake the convictions
of the Melvills, he meant to see whether or not Scott and Watson
would not weaken when conferred with privately at Lambeth. He
asked them whether they had found any authority in the ancients
to prove that the name "Presbyter" was given to any one
who did not preach and administer the sacraments, or that the
name of "bishop" was allotted in the Fathers to any who had
not superiority over the presbyters and the rest of the clergy, or
if they ever read of a presbytery that was not subordinate to a
bishop. But, acording to their own accounts, he derived so little
satisfaction from them that he renounced his intention of confer
ring with their brethren. Toward the middle of November, the
eight were put in confinement at the houses of different bishops,
whose conversation and example, it was hoped, would soften the
hearts of the recalcitrant Scotchmen.

About th'is time Melvill 's epigram, comparing the English ser
vice to that of Rome, came to the King's knowledge. The offender
was summoned on November 30, 1606, before the English Privy
Council, where in the King's absence Bancroft presided.5 He or
dered Melvill to kneel, as was customary, and when he refused
bade some of the officers force him into that posture. Melvill,
thus held down, stretched his hands passionately to heaven, and
prayed "To thee, O Lord, I make my moane," and, when the
pressure was removed, sprang to his feet.6 After being several

1 Spotiswood in his History of the s Calderwood, VI, 597. Melvill,
Church, and Calderwood give the 678, ff.

Greek, as Melvill does not. 6 Row, 285, gives this, which seems

2 Melvill, 663. probable enough. Melvill, and Cal-

3 Melvill, 664. derwood, who followed him, omit it.

4 Calderwood, VI, 588. as was natural enough.

164

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

times forced to his knees only to rise at once, Bancroft motioned
to the attendants to allow him to speak standing. He confessed
he had written the verses, being moved with indignation "to see
such vanity and superstition in a Christian Reformed Church."
When Bancroft attempted to explain why the verses were dis
liked, the angry minister "took occasion plainly in his face, before
the Council, to tell him all his mind, which burst out as fire in
closed by water." He charged him with the "corruptions and
vanities and superstitions ' ' he had introduced into England in the
profanation of the Sabbath; the "silencing and imprisoning and
bearing down of the true and faithful preachers of the Word of
God; of setting up and holding up the Antichristian Hierarchy
and popish ceremonies." Then, striding up to the astonished pre
late, he grasped his white lawn sleeves and shook them ' ' freely and
roundly," and no doubt the prelate with them, shouting out that
they were "Romish Rags and a part of the Beast's mark." He
went on to say that if Bancroft was the author of a book called
' ' Scotizing Genevating Discipline, ' ' l which he pulled out of his
bosom and shook in the Archbishop's face, he esteemed him "the
capital enemy of all Reformed churches in Europe" and would so
declare him while a drop of blood remained in his veins. He was
grieved to his heart's core to know that such a man possessed the
King's ear, and sat so high in the honourable Privy Council of
England. Then, he turned upon Barlow with no less violence,
enumerated the "horribill speiches" in his account of the Hampton
Court Conference, and, at last, every possible interruption proving
futile to check the flood of invective, he was "put forth in a place
by himself."

When James Melvill, who had been waiting outside, appeared,
Bancroft2 praised him for his "gravity, learning, modest behaviour
and Christian carriage," advising him so to continue. The Scotch
man denied that he had blamed the King in his letter to his friends
in Scotland ; and claimed that what he had sent was only a simple

1 One of the sub-titles of the Dan- 237, says that Bancroft remained in
gerous Positions which was sometimes the chair. Either may be correct but
thus referred to. See Fuller, Book it seems unlikely that Bancroft should
IX, 195. have resigned the chair or should

2 Melvill says that Ellesmere, the have been deposed because of Mel-
Lord Chancellor, addressed him; vill's outburst. It seems probable
Calderwood follows Melvill: but enough that it was an attempt by the
Row, History of the Kirk of Scotland, younger Melvill to discredit him

165

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

narrative of events. He acknowledged that his uncle, Andrew,
had written the verses, but declared that they had been shown to
no one. Robert Wallace, his companion, said much the same. All
three were then called in together, and after a long speech by Elles-
mere, the Lord Chancellor, Andrew was ordered into the custody
ol the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral: and the others, left at liberty,
were warned to be discreet in writing and talking.

There met at Linlithgow, in the following month, an assembly
of ministers, which, before it dissolved, declared itself a lawful
General Assembly, and at last gave the bishops a position in the
Kirk.1 Under the pretence of the better execution of the laws
against the Catholics, every presbytery was to have a "constant
moderator," who would continue to execute the law when the
presbytery was not in session. Each bishop, already invested
with title and estates, was to be the constant moderator of his
presbytery; and where there was no bishop, the new officer should
be elected by that body itself. The constant moderators were to be
ex officio members of the General Assembly, and the bishops were
to be also moderators of the provincial synods. The bishops,
having acquired a title in 1599, and an income in July, 1606, now
received in December, 1606, a legitimate connection with the Kirk.

Great was the outcry from the presbyteries when the fact be
came generally known. Many declared that the body at Linlith
gow was not a lawful General Assembly ; that the delegates had no
authority from their presbyteries to conclude anything at all;
and that the sections of the Act making the constant moderators
ex officio members of the General Assembly, and appointing the
bishops to the moderatorship of the provincial synods, had been
interpolated by royal command, after the Assembly had been dis
solved. For these and many similar reasons, the royal commis
sioners met with general opposition when they attempted to in
stall the new officers, whom one writer stigmatised as "the little
thieves entering at the narrow windows to open the doors for the
great thieves. "2 Still the majority of the presbyteries yielded:
it was in the provincial synods that the real struggle took
place.

At Perth, the synod instructed the old moderator to call the

i Calderwood, VI, 613, at 616, and 2 Calderwood, VII, 2, and 50, for

624. other denunciations.

166

BECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

roll, so that voting for a new presiding officer could proceed.1 The
first man voted for Henry Livingston, and not for the bishop,
whereat the comptroller, Lord Scone, "raged" and attempted to
snatch the list of names. But, taking the book in his left hand,
with his right the dominie forced the nobleman back into his chair
and held him there, while he read all the names and thus elected
Livingston as moderator. Lord Scone dared the new official to
take his place, and so, disregarding the chair, Livingston stepped
to the middle of the table and proceeded to open the synod with
prayer. The comptroller "in a great rage" stamped and cursed,
and "Mr. Henrie went forward in prayer." Whereupon the
angry noble overturned the table upon the kneeling minister, who
never stirred, but "besought the Lord to be avenged upon the re-
proache and blasphemie of his. great name and contempt of his
glorie, so stamped under foote by profane men." Meanwhile, the
comptroller, "like a mad man," paced the floor, till, worn out at
last, "he removed and walked in the kirk beside." The Bishop
of St. Andrews, fearing a similar scene at Fife, issued letters for
bidding the meeting of the synod. Some of the ministers obeyed ;
and those that came were not allowed to enter the town, but they
finally convened the synod on the damp sands of the seashore
and "spent two hours in reasoning," "the rain pouring upon
them."2

Meanwhile, on March 7, 1606-7, Bancroft had been experiencing
the same resolution in the Scotch ministers still detained at Lon
don. The latter had been assigned to residence with the various
bishops, had objected strenuously to the order, and had at last
petitioned for their release. The Privy Council requested Ban
croft to deal with them. The Archbishop sent for two 3 and made
every effort to disarm their prejudices and quiet their apprehen
sions. Even the Scots themselves, deeply as they hated the bishops
and convinced, as they were, that Bancroft was the author of the
scheme for installing them in Scotland, were compelled to admit
his unfailing gentleness and courtesy. He received them alone

1 Calderwood, VI, 651-652; see also tainly is a remarkable testimonial to
on Synod of Fife, 674, and the Earl the impartiality and fairness with
of Abereorne to James I, August 26, which he wrote, but it may also be
1607, in Botfield's Original Letters, added that if Bancroft had not dis-
I« 104. played remarkable tact and courtesy,

2 Calderwood, VI, 658. Melvill would not have said as much

3 This is Melvill 's account and cer- ^bout it as he has.

167

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

and at once laid aside his clerical cap, which he knew was offensive
to them. Then, "with great reverence," he explained, "sometimes
merrily and sometimes gravely," that, inasmuch as the King was
not yet willing to dismiss them and had desired to have them well
entertained in the meantime, he had directed several of the bish
ops to see that they were cared for as befitted men of their station.
The messengers sent to them were not, as they supposed, pursui
vants to arrest them, but attendants of the Council to guide them to
the abodes of their new hosts. If the servants had been rude or in
discreet, or if they feared that the bishops would not "lovingly
receive" them and treat them "kindly and courteously," they
ought to inform him ; he would see it remedied at once and be re
sponsible for the future.

They replied that they could never repay such courtesy except
by their prayers ; but, seeing that no insult was worse than compul
sory courtesy, they begged to be allowed to stay as long as the
King wished at their own expense, as they had done for some
months (which was not true),1 and not to trouble the bishops, to
whom they could not be pleasant guests and whom they could
not find in turn congenial hosts. They were men who had
honest houses and tables of their own, and were averse to
risking their health by giving up their accustomed diet. "You
speak truth," replied Bancroft, "like honest men as you are, and
I do think, my brother, that the bishops would have little pleasure
of you, except to pleasure the King's Majesty; for our custom is,
after our serious matters, to refresh ourselves an hour or two with
cards or other games after meals, and you are more precise:2 but
it were good the King should be satisfied to further his Royal en
deavor to unite us together in one Kirk and Policy." "We do
think the same," replied Melvill, "so that the ground of union,
which is the truth of God's word, and fundamental laws of equity
and policy be kept; but where a Church and kingdom is solidly
and of long standing built on these, it is dangerous to seek an al
teration ; and there is no Union can be made to stand sure without
that." "I know your meaning, Mr. Melvill," replied the Arch-

1 In July 1606 those who came to pensions out of the bishopric of St.
England received £2666, 13 s., 4d., ex- Andrew amounting to £2000. See
pense money, as the Treasurer^ ac- Botfield, Original Letters, I, xxv.
counts of Scotland testify, and in ad- 2 This may be true, but after all,
dition, the King continued to An- we have only the authority of Ban-
drew Melvill and George Young their croft 's bitter enemy for it.

168

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

bishop, ' ' and we will not reason that matter : but I am sure we do
both uphold and keep the true ground of religion and are brethren
in Christ; and so should behave ourselves one toward another.
Our difference is only in the governing of the Church and some
ceremonies; but I understand, since you are come from Scotland,
your Kirk is almost brought to be one with ours in that also:
for I am certified that there are constant moderators appointed
in your General Assemblies, Synods and Presbyteries, even as I
am highest under the King in this Church, and yet am nothing
above the rest of my brethren, the Bishops, but in pain and travail ;
so that I was in a better estate when I was but Richard Bancroft ;
even as a Standing Moderator of that General Assembly, or as Mas
ter Patrick Galloway,1 or such others are in Scotland ; and in every
Province or Diocese there is a Bishop, a Moderator of a Chapter
or a Presbytery, answerable all to the King." Upon this, William
Scott, began "a wise and solid conference, and discourse" with
plentiful mention of men's duty to Christ and a good conscience,
declaring that for them to yield to the King in Scotland "would
prove nothing else but the very banishing of the gospell, and the
drawing down of God's curse and wrath on them all, King and
subjects." 2

Bancroft saw plainly that nothing was to be gained from a theo
logical disputation and realised that the moment had come to
close the interview. So, smiling good-humoredly, he tapped Scott
on the arm and said, ' ' Tush, man ! Take here a cup of good sack. ' '
He filled the cup himself and held the napkin while they both
drank. "So," concluded Melvill, "after many good words and
fair offers of all he could do at the King's hand for us to obtain
our liberty, he sent us away." Bancroft kept his word and saw to
it that nothing more was said to them about living with the bishops.
And it should be remembered that this pleasant picture of Bancroft
was drawn by one who hated him as much as he did any man in the
island of Great Britain.

In the summer of 1607, after Melvill 's tirade against Bancroft
in the Privy Council, the scene of activity in the introduction of
Episcopacy into Scotland, shifted from England to the North,
whither Melvill 's companions speedily betook themselves, leaving

i He had been in 1603 and 1604 English cousins.

the agent of the Scotch Presbyteries 2 Row. Historic of tlie Kirk, 233.

at the English Court to help their

169

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

him perforce in the Tower. During the year 1607 and the year
following, the work progressed of reducing the recalcitrant presby
teries and synods, and of punishing the most obstinate and promi
nent of the ministers. Under Balmerino's direction,1 the Privy
Council had interfered constantly with the work of the presby
teries and Kirk courts, seeking to break down if possible the idea
that these bodies alone could rightfully deal in ecclesiastical mat
ters.2 The bishops, armed with special royal commissions, had been
actively visiting the most stubborn districts, where, by a liberal
bestowal of threats and censures, they had created the impression
that it was well to yield to the royal wishes, at the same time that
they had insinuated that the changes were not of sufficient im
portance to quarrel over.3

At the General Assembly at Linlithgow in 1608, the Earl of
Dunbar carefully developed the one point of agreement between the
bishops and the ministers — the execution of the penal laws against
the Catholics, — and succeeded, in view of the strenuous proceed
ings contemplated against the latter, in postponing till 1610 a
discussion of the real difficulties between the old ministers and the
new officers. But the great step was taken in the Parliament of
1609, which "restored and redintegrated the archibischoppis and
bischoppis of this realme to thair former authoritie, dignitie, pre
rogative, privileges, and jurisdictioun. " The ministers were dis
gusted and railed publicly from their pulpits against "these craf-
tie tods, and filthie dogs and swyne,"4 "these Judasses, sonnes of
perdition, who for money have betrayed Christ and His King
dom."5 But the bishops were there none the less. Meanwhile,
the Privy Council had instituted a searching inquiry into the
property of the old bishoprics, with a view to seeing how much
could be restored.6 In November, 1609, the pulpits of Edinburgh
were declared open at whatever time they chose to all bishops who
wished to preach in them ; and to the further scandal of the ' ' god
ly," Christmas was kept at Edinburgh with feasting and holiday
revels, for the first time in many years.7 Spotiswood, the Arch
bishop of Glasgow, was made a Lord of the Session, the supreme

1 Bancroft to James, October 12, 3 Privy Council Register, VII, 103,
1607. Botfield's Original Letters, I, 126.

117. 4Calderwood, VII, 2.

2 Privy Council Register for Scot- * Calderwood, VII, 50.

land, VIII, 66, 82, 92, 328, 330, 364, 6 Privy Council Register, VITT, 600.

381, 425, 813. 7 Calderwood, VII, 52.

170

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

judicial tribunal of Scotland; and the judges and bishops were
all ordered to wear gowns of a new pattern selected by the King
himself and sent down from London. At the opening of February
term, 1610, they all paraded solemnly through the High Street
before the indignant gaze of a disapproving populace. But not a
word was spoken nor a stone thrown.

In that same month, two High Commissions were created for
Scotland on the English model, but with comparatively slight
powers.1 It was hoped that the inclusion of nearly every im
portant minister in each province in the list of Commissioners
would disarm the opposition, and make the court after all only
the local presbytery acting with the bishop under a royal com
mission. Actually, nothing was to be changed; but if, by such
means, the consent of the Kirk could be secured to the existence
of the Commission, the bishops and the King would have gained
large residual powers which, on occasion, would prove to be im
portant. It was the right to interfere at crucial moments, rather
than the control of the ordinary administration of the Kirk, that
James was so eager to acquire. Nevertheless, disguise it as they
might, the fact remained that the bishops had at last received
judicial powers to punish those "whom they hold anie way to be
scandalous," by excommunication, or by "fyne at their discre-
tiouns, imprisoun, or warde." By the establishment of the High
Commission, Episcopacy was at last made an institution with a
right of its own to exist. Yet, powerful as was the Commission
compared to the authority which the bishops had formerly pos
sessed, it was only a shadow of its English prototype, and claimed
only a tithe of the powers which the Kirk courts actually exer
cised.

Then in May, 1610, at the General Assembly at St. Andrews,
the work was finally consummated, by securing the assent of the
Kirk to the new episcopal powers.2 Without much doubt, the result

i Given in full in Calderwood, VII, valid, was large ; and the small quo-

57-62. See also Privy Council Reg- rum was made five, as in the English

ister, VIII, 417-20. Apparently each Commission of 1611.
archbishop could summon only within 2 Documents are given at great

his own province, and each bishop length by Calderwood, VII, 99, who,

within his own diocese. The quorum in common with the leading ministers,

of those, one of whom must be pres- regarded this session as a national

ent in order to make proceedings calamity.

171

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

was partly obtained by bribery and other undue influence, but
much was due to the presence in force of the northern and western
clergy, who had very little sympathy with the southern presby
teries. For many years the General Assembly had been held in
such places that very few of the northern and western clergy could
come, so that Fife, Perth, and the Lothians practically had ruled
the Kirk. Aware of this fact, Dunbar had taken particular care
to have a full representation from the neglected presbyteries,
who revenged themselves royally on their brethren by voting to
approve Episcopacy. The Assembly of Aberdeen of 1605 was de
clared unlawful, and, in place of the old assertion of the right of
the General Assembly to meet each year, the King was begged to
call one yearly. The moderatorship of the diocesan synod was
conceded to the bishop ; all presentations to livings were to be
hereafter directed *to him, though the fitness of each candidate
should be certified by his own presbytery; if, on further trial,
the bishop was satisfied with his learning, he should admit him
with the assistance of the ministry of the district. No one should
be excommunicated without the bishop 's consent ; deposition should
be performed by the bishop, assisted by the ministers; visitations
were to be held by the bishop or his delegate; the provincial as
semblies became diocesan assemblies, and the term " presbytery "
was to be discountenanced.

Thus, bishops were at last established in Scotland. Yet their
authority, even as ratified by the Assembly of St. Andrews, existed
rather in name than in fact. Bishops there were, but no true Epis
copacy. The bishop became a useful and necessary part of the legal
machinery of the Kirk as already established, but he never became
indispensable and never was endowed with independent authority
and initiative, for the real power still rested, as it had ever since
1592, with the synods and presbyteries. Bancroft intuitively real
ised how far it would be safe to go; had proceeded little by little
and had been careful to end well within bounds. The bishops he
instituted performed the functions which had been previously
allotted to temporary officers elected by the presbytery, and be
came permanent chairmen of the Church assemblies and courts,
and permanent executive officers to carry out the orders and sen
tences which had been agreed upon. Creed, doctrine, the form of
worship, the church laws, the method of discipline, Bancroft was

172

RECONSTRUCTION IN SCOTLAND, 1606-1610

most careful to leave intact. The bishops were meant to give the
King control over the existing organisation, not to reconstruct the
Scotch Kirk; and they supplanted, not the Kirk nor any part of
its organisation, but the small self-chosen and self-perpetuating
body of ministers, headed by the Melvills, who had hitherto been
in control. The nominal supremacy had been transferred from
those, who had obtained it by process of natural selection, to a
body of officials appointed by the %Crown. Furthermore, Bancroft
appointed to bishoprics all of the old leaders who would accept
office, being well aware that the obstinate would never be willing
to soil themselves, as they said, "with the pollution."

Nor was this influence of the State in the affairs of the Kirk,—
it can hardly be called control,— necessarily an evil. The old
leaders had so manipulated the assembly that their own districts
should always be in the ascendency, from the physical inability
of the clergy of the North and West to travel so far; now, the
bishops assured every part of the kingdom of at least one influential
representative who would make its wants known. The power was
vested in the Crown and bishops; and fettered, as it was, by a
strong public opinion, was even less likely to work injustice than
the uncontrolled authority of the old set of leaders whom Melvill
had drawn about him. In reality, James had been at war with
them rather than with the Kirk as a whole. He believed, as firmly
and sincerely, that their influence was bad for the Scotch nation,
as they, honestly and conscientiously, were convinced of the con
trary. Whatever may have been the personal faults of the new
bishops (and they were many), whatever may have been the in
justice of imposing them upon the Kirk, whatever were the iniqui
ties by which they were installed, certainly they did, in great
measure, end the violent quarrels of Church and State in Scot
land.

Bancroft's compromise worked well for twenty-seven years; and
then was ruined through the attempts of Laud to improve it.' He
discovered one day, that the bishops north of the Tweed were, after
all, only the permanent executive officers of a Presbyterian Kirk,
administering the laws and rules of discipline passed by the presby
teries, and sanctioning a regular nonconformist conventicle. To
Laud, bishops could exist only in connection with a ritual, a prayer

173

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

book, and canons duly approved by Convocation. In short, to him
there could be no bishops without Episcopacy. He set himself to
remedy so serious a defect — and put an end to Episcopacy in
Scotland for ever. He failed in Scotland, as he did in England,
because he could not understand the peculiar compromise which
Bancroft had erected with extraordinary care and difficulty.

174

CHAPTER VII

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

Years before the oath of allegiance had been thought of, while
the Jesuits were at the climax of their power, Father Creighton had
written to Father Parsons, anent the latter 's supporting the suc
cession of the Spanish Infanta to the English throne, "there is a
French proverbe, you cannot catch a hare by beating a drum."
Parsons had been industriously sounding the call to arms for years ;
and now, at the great crisis of the Jesuit fortunes, began to realise
that the English Catholics had taken fright and left his camp. The
war was on ; the seculars had come to terms with 'the English Gov
ernment; and it now remained to be seen whether Parsons could,
after all, marshall the rank and file of the English lay Catholics at
the beat of the drum. If the majority of the laity took the oath of
allegiance, the Jesuits were defeated and the actual control of the
Catholic Church in England would pass into the hands of the
seculars. In reality, the organisation of that time was so loose as to
be democratic: the men who received the popular support would
rule, and would, in the end, be accepted at Rome, where convex
sions and tangible results were most favourably regarded. As
soon as it became definitely certain that the Government would
favour essential toleration, and that the laity would accept it, an
episcopal organisation of the regular model would very likely be
instituted.

Parliament had been prorogued on May 27, 1606 ; and, in accord
ance with Bancroft's ideas, no immediate steps to enforce the new
laws were taken, in order to give the priests time to consult with
one another and arrive at some definite decision as to their attitude.
They were fully alive to the situation; and, when Mush arrived
in London early in June, he found a number of his comrades
already assembled and much perplexed about the oath.1 Some

i Tierney, IV, cxxxvi. Mush 's own tion we could have. Father Blount 's

account, July 11, 1606, on which these account substantially agrees with it.

paragraphs have been based. It Foley, Eecords, I, 64.
seems as trustworthy as any informa-

175

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

thought it altogether inadmissible : others went so far as to declare,
on the authority of Azorus, that the taking of it and occasional
attendance at church were legal. Heborne had visited the priests
in the Newgate prison to urge them to accept the oath ; and, accord
ing to Jesuit accounts, was not successful. Wright and others were
openly dealing with Salisbury.1 Blackwell, the Archpriest, who,
shortly before the oath was passed by Parliament, had inveighed
against it, now had veered around and brought all his authority
to bear in its favour. Many conferences and a great deal of argu
ment only produced "multas limitationes et subterfugia."

Mush, with the Jesuits, Holtby and Preston, stood out against
the Archpriest and besought him either to send two envoys to Rome
to obtain a decision from the Pope; or at least to delegate two
priests to confer with two Jesuits and two Benedictines, in order to
agree upon some prudent and uniform course to which, once
chosen, they should all adhere firmly, (qua aliquid prudent er et
uniformi consensu concludi posset.} Blackwell plead his own
danger as an excuse for taking no action, to which they retorted
that he was in no greater peril than the rest of them, who were
at that moment equally liable to arrest, with a probable exile or
death to follow. No doubt, this reticence of the Archpriest in
regard to an appeal to Rome or to the Jesuits arose from his
knowledge or belief, that Bancroft was anxious to know what the
Catholics would do without papal sanction, or in the face of possible
disapprobation. Further, however servile the Archpriest had been
to the Jesuits, he was not without a very real notion of the power
Parsons held at Rome, and of the difficulty of reaching the Pope
except with his consent ; and he knew it was distinctly improbable
that either Parsons, or the Jesuits in England, would in any way
countenance such an oath. Until their victory was won, the
seculars had little to hope from Rome; and none knew it better
than Blackwell. The Archpriest, therefore, returned to the original
proposition and declared (tenuit quod absolute] that the oath of

i Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, A, VI, f . the man who had housed Garnet.

293. Blount to Parsons, August 1, Kumours of all sorts were current A

( July f) 1606. Nothing had been proclamation was issued April IS,

£7at this time to enforce the law 1606 to contradict a .tor, M£t an

for Blount says: ' ' The state of accident had befallen the King and

us hereTs as it was, no residence lost all the people had been called to

save Mr. Abbingtons, whoe yett re- arms. Rymer, Foedera, XVI, 645.
mayneth prisoner." Abbington was

176

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

allegiance could safely be taken. The opposition was far from
being convinced; and finally, after much difficulty, Blackwell
met in conference, Holtby, Garnet's successor as head of
the Jesuits then in England, his colleague, Preston, Mush of the
Northern Catholics, Colleton of the Southern clergy, Bishop, who
had been in such close touch with Bancroft during the appeal of
1602, and Broughton. Blackwell said that he did not believe that
his Holiness could, in the present state of affairs, actually depose
the King, but could only declare him deposed; and therefore to
swear that the Pope possessed no power to do what he manifestly
could not accomplish, was not unlawful. Bishop and Broughton
agreed with him ; and, on the other side, Mush1 and the two Jesuits
ranged themselves, insisting that it was a very dangerous doctrine
that the Pope possessed only such authority as he could effectively
execute. What was to become of the papal supremacy, if tangible
evidence of the conclusiveness of papal decisions were to be
demanded ?

The deliberations at the conference came to precisely the same
end as had the earlier discussions among the priests : nothing was
decided at all and a dangerous split seemed to be opening in the
secular ranks, which in fact was precisely what the Jesuits were
hoping to enlarge. Blackwell and his adherents wished to inform
the people and lower clergy that the Archpriest had decided in
favour of the new oath. Mush and the Jesuits, on the other hand,
said deprecatingly, that they wished to create no schism and would
refer the whole question to the Pope ; and, with a graciousness not
wholly devoid of humour, inasmuch as they could not possibly
hinder the Catholics from following the Archpriest if they chose,
gave them permission to espouse whichever side they preferred.
But every attempt to keep Blackwell's decision from the clergy
until some definite word could be obtained from Rome was fruit
less; and the gentry and laity who had been in London, attending
the Trinity session of the law courts, went home bursting with the
great news that the new oath could be properly taken by Catholics.
In a short time, therefore, the decision had been spread far and
wide as quickly as was possible in those days of bad communica
tion.

1 Mush insisted afterward, in 1611, "I ever condemned the whole oath."
Tierney, IV, elxxviii.

177

THE EECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Doubtless, Bancroft was regularly informed by Bishop, as well
as by his spies, of the progress of these discussions and soon saw
that the leaven was working. The right of the King under the law
to confiscate property and collect fines, would, the Archbishop well
knew, be so powerful an incentive to the laity in favour of taking
the oath, that the only practical obstacle would be the decision of
their spiritual advisers against it as a thing perilous to their salva
tion. To maintain the show of enforcing the laws against the Cath
olics as a whole, and to be ready to deal sharply with the refractory,
a proclamation appeared on July 10, the last day of Trinity term
and just before the long summer assizes, ordering all Jesuits and
seminary priests to leave England before August first ; and offering
every facility of departure both to those in prison and to those at
large.1 The proclamation, with a mildness too often overlooked,
declared that although the Gunpowder Treason had amply justified
the new laws and their rigid execution, "the supreme dispensation
of clemency and moderation of the severity of our laws is likewise
proper to us to use, when we shall find it reasonable. ' ' It promul
gated the royal intention of "renewing some course of lenity
against some particulars, so far forth as may be, without the peril
of our religious and loyal people, ' ' and protested that ' ' this is done
for no other purpose but to avoid the effusion of blood," and, by
banishing the seducers of his people, to "remove all cause of such
severity." "We confess that we desire still to make it appear, in
the whole course of our government, we are far from accounting
all those subjects disloyal that are that way (i. e. Catholicly)
affected. . . . Therefore as aftertimes must give us trial of all
men's behaviours, so must all men expect that their own deserts
must be the only measure of their own fortunes at our hands, either
one way or other."

Here was the new policy, as clearly set forth as was advisable in
a state document; and the tone of the paper is little less than
remarkable, if we remember that the Gunpowder Treason was
scarcely nine months past ; and if we consider the character of the
laws just passed and the sentiments openly expressed in the House
of Commons. Those who would not be loyal and accept the oath of
allegiance should suffer under the new laws ; but no others should

i Proclamation Book at the Kecord Office. Eeprinted in Strype, Annals,
IV, 557; and Tierney, IV, cxxxii.

178

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

be molested. Iii the proclamation of June, 1611, occurred these
striking words : ' ' We had never any intention, in the form of the
oath, to press any point of conscience for matter of religion, but
only to make some discovery of disloyal affection. ' '

Time was needed to allow the seculars to convince the Catholics
at large of the lawfulness and expediency of accepting the new
situation; the recalcitrant had been allowed till August first to
leave the realm ; and it was therefore not until August that the com
missions issued for the discovery of seminary priests1 and the
administering of the new oath to all who intended to * ' pass over the
seas. " 2 In the fall arrived a papal brief dated September 223
which condemned the oath as containing things opposed to faith
and salvation. Eight English priests, who were still in doubt,
found small comfort in the vague and general phrases of disap
proval; and wrote to the Pope begging him to specify his reasons
for refusing them the desired permission.4 The Government was
not surprised at the papal attitude, and was very likely pleased.
It made the situation perfectly clear cut. "Uppon that point of
disadvowiiig the oths by the Pope he (the King) used large dis
course that it wold be an occasion to him to make an evident tryall
of the allegiance of his subjects of that sort whether they wold
adhere to him by persisting in their oths or to the Pope in for
bearing it hereafter. ' ' 5 Had Pius V consented to the oath, the
immediate consequences would have been favourable; but the per
mission might be at any time revoked, and James would still be
dependent on the Pope's fiat for the loyalty of his subjects. This
was precisely what Bancroft wished to avoid. Some form of oath
was sought which the English Catholics would accept, but which
the Pope and the Jesuits would be certain to disapprove ; for, as he
pointed out to James, until the Catholics would act independently
of Rome, no lasting settlement could be secured. Chance had
thrown in their way an excellent opportunity and it was eminently
desirable that the Pope should not spoil it by weakening at the
moment when his inflexibility had been built upon as a distinct
asset.

iPatent Eoll, 4 Jac. I, part 12. that the letter never reached the Pope.

2Patent Eoll, 4 Jac. I, part 12. History of the Jesuits in England,

3 Printed in Tierney, IV, cxl. 356.

4 In Tierney, IV, ccv. Mr. Taun- 5 Lake to Salisbury, October 19,
ton suggests that Parsons saw to it 1606. Hatfield MSS. 118, f. 15.

179

THE BECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

In the meantime, no attempt seems to have been made to admin
ister the oath.1 The principal priests had no doubt already taken
it, and probably the bishops and justices of the peace had offered
it to some few influential men in their jurisdictions, who were
practically certain to accept it. As far as can be judged by the
scanty evidence, the oath was used between June, 1606, and Febru
ary, 1607-8 only to induce the Catholics to look favourably upon
it. As will be later seen, Bancroft was desirous that the golden
opportunity should not be lost by undue haste or ill-timed severity.
Indeed, according to the Earl of Sheffield's report to the King,
November 1, 1606, the recusants in the North ''begin to grow verrie
insolente and to show themselves and there intentions more openly,
since of late by what means I know not the penaltie of those lawes
haue not so absolutely as before ben inflicted oppon them as allso
many grases and favores showed them." "Of late in all thes
northe partes (yeat the plott as themselves say came oute of the
southe) many celect men haue been imployed to goe upp and doune
to gett onto a petission for tolleration of religgion all the handes of
not only requsants bout also of all souche as be favourers of there
religgion. ' ' 2

Meanwhile, the Archbishop occupied himself, during October and
November, 1606, in unravelling that astonishing legend of the
barley-corn.3 One John Wilks, a Yorkshire silkweaver, had been
present at Garnet's execution and brought away with him an ear
of barley-corn, bespattered with some of the Jesuit's blood. At
the earnest entreaty of Hugh Griffin and his wife, he gave them
the straw which was soon set in crystal as a relic. "About nine

i The exact contrary has usually 2 Earl of Sheffield to (the King)
been stated, on the strength of some November 1, 1606 (November 2?).
ambassadorial reports, but chiefly of Hatfield MSS. 118, f. 36. Holograph,
the statements of Jesuits or their This is the original report of an eye-
sympathisers. Dr. Gardiner says witness written at the time.
(History, I, 288; "The oath which 3 The accounts of this are plentifu
might have been used to lighten the but not trustworthy. The account in
severity of the laws which pressed so the text is based upon a MS. in the
heavily even upon the loyal Catholics, archives of the Old English Chapter,
was only employed to increase the printed in Taunton, Jesuits. 322. See
burdens upon those who refused to also Foley, IV, 133. Some of the ex-
declare their disbelief in a tenet travagant fables about it will be
which was inculcated by the most found in Somers' Tracts, II, -10,
venerated teachers of their Church, (Scott's Edition), and F. Osborne s
and which might be held innocuously Traditional Memoirs of the Reign of
by thousands who would never dream James I, Sect. 12.
of putting it in practice. ' '

180

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

weeks since and not before, ' ' Griffin thought he saw the lineaments
of a face on the straw, and having in the next fortnight looked at
it some forty times, often for ' ' half an hour or an hour together, ' '
he came to the conclusion that Garnet's face was miraculously
drawn upon the straw in his own blood. The news of the miracle
spread like wild fire; and it was reported that prominent priests
who had known the dead man declared the likeness to be excellent.
Bancroft evidently did not consider it expedient to allow Garnet
to be erected so soon into a popular martyr by what seemed cer
tainly a trick. In due time, he found the original discoverer of the
face, induced him to confess how long a time had elapsed between
his first sight of the straw and his discovery of the face on it, and
to make various other admissions very damaging to his case. Into
all of these the Bishop may have frightened the poor, superstitious
man. But the information thus gathered was also spread broad
cast and became a distinct factor in a complex situation.

Meanwhile, Blackwell was in an agony of indecision. It was his
duty to promulgate the papal brief, which not only convicted him
of error but also adopted a policy which he believed ruinous for
the Catholic party in England. His dilemma was very much like
Garnet's over the Gunpowder Plot. According to his own story,1
he had already dispatched Mr. Singleton to Rome in August, to
explain to the Pope his position, but Singleton passed the breve
on the road. Then, early in September, before the breve arrived,
Blackwell had issued letters stating at length his reason for con
sidering the oath lawful and forbidding all instructions against
taking it. Then arrived the breve, directed however, "Catholicis
Anglis, Dilecti filii," without any special mention of Blackwell him
self. Apparently, too, more than one copy was forwarded so that
others received it at the same time he did. Then it was that he took
a courageous step. Taking advantage of the fact that the breve
was addressed generally to the English Catholics, he drew the
inference that no special promulgation was required of him and did
not publish it at all. While this was perhaps a good technical
defence, he had in spirit disobeyed the Pope, — a step for a man
in his position sufficiently daring, and denoting clearly how firmly
convinced he was of the feasibility of the new scheme. Consterna-

!" Fifth examination of George terbury, and the dean of Westmin-
Blackwell, Archpriest, taken July 2, ster. " Printed by Tierney, IV, cxlii,
1607, before the archbishop of Can- from the original.

181

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

tion spread through the ranks of his opponents when they learned
that he had practically disregarded the papal commands ; and soon
a letter, dated September 28, 1606, and purporting to be +'rom
Blackwell, was being passed about supporting the breve and con
demning the oath. This epistle Blackwell later strenuously repu
diated, and declared he never wrote.1 All the autumn and winter,
the war continued. * ' These naughty priests afflict us very much ; ' '
wrote Blount to Parsons, on December 7,2 "for, besides Skidmore,
the Bishop of Canterbury his man, Rouse, Atkinson, Grosvenor,
and others relapsed which openly profess to betray their brethren,
others are no less dangerous, which persuade a lawfulness of going
to sermons and to service, by which means many worldlings, to save
their temporals, are contented to follow their counsel, and not only
that, but justify their fact also. I would to God the customer (i. e.
the Archpriest) would inform of all such matters as belong to him :
for his silence doth argue a kind of neglect of the points ; and our
information maketh us more hated of the estate and secular
priests. ' ' 3 Even the Jesuits were compelled to admit the defection
of the Catholics to the side of the Government. "So it is," wrote
Holtby to Parsons, "that partly by the doctrine of approvinge the
oathe and much more of allowing and defending our longe abhorred
churche-goenge, we are brought into that estate, that we feare in
short tyme ne lucerna nostra prorsus extinguatur, neyther let our
friends think that we speak this to amplifie the matter, for no doubt
the case is more Lamentable then we could haue Imagined or ex
pected, for now not onely weak persons hear and there upon
feare of temporall losses do resent from their constancie, but whole
countries and shires runne hedlong without scruple unto the here-
tickes Churches, to service and sermons, as a thinge most Lawfull,
being emboldened thereunto by the warrant of their pastors and
spirituall guides. ' ' 4 The Jesuits even seem to have had an idea
that the repeal of the penal laws and the favour of the Government
might be bought.5

In the following summer, inasmuch as the situation was still un
changed, Bancroft took Blackwell into custody, or, as the Arch-

i' 'Fifth Examination of George * Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, A, ITT,

Blackwell." no. 71. October 30, 1606.

2 Printed by Tierney, IV, cxlv, * Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, A, ITT,

from the original. no. 62. July 14, 1606; no. 72. De-

s Tierney, IV, cxlv. cember 7, 1606.

182

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

priest put it, "it hath pleased our gracious Lord to suffer me to
fall into the mouth of one, who long hath gaped after me. ' ' Very
likely Bancroft could have seized him at any moment during the
past eight years had he thought it expedient. As usual, the Arch
bishop was excellently informed of everything that had transpired
even to the priest's most secret doings; and, says Blackwell, he
"made an heavie present unto me of his holines brief es, and of the
coppies of my Lettres about the publicacon of the same with such
other pressing Evidence of all my proceedings, ' ' that the poor man
saw denial was futile. He was examined eight times, and signed
a great many papers, with a full account of most of these transac
tions, all of which Bancroft preserved for future use. For the
nonce, the Archbishop was satisfied with securing from him a letter
to his clergy, dated July 7,1 1607, in which he retailed the facts of
his late examinations, declared that he had taken the oath as it
stood in the statute book, and urged all his clergy to do the same
and instruct the laity to follow their example. Blackwell had now
committed himself, and another crisis had been forced upon the
Catholics. So long as there was a division of opinion amongst
them, and so long as their regularly constituted authorities
abstained from public commands, it was difficult to force any of
them to take the oath by the pressure of their own organisation,
because they could easily have recourse to the fact that their organ
isation had not officially registered any opinion. The head of the
seculars had at last acted openly; and, although, as his letter
showed, some compulsion had been used, the opinions, which he
gave forth, were only those which it was well-known he had main
tained in private for the past year. He had not changed his views
under the pressure of the archiepiscopal authority but had merely
been induced to make them public.2

i Printed by Tierney, IV, cxlvii, MSS. Anglia, A, VI, f. 305.
from the original in 8. P. Dom. Jac. 2 « The Archpriest who is in prison
I, 28, no. 5. He has modernised the has caused great satisfaction by ta-
spelling. What seems to be the orig- king the oath of supremacy and by ad-
inal of the oath Blackwell took is in vising others to do so too. Although
Additional MSS. 30662, f. 73. About he is the Pope's chief minister here
this time, Bancroft also examined the and as the head of the Catholics deep-
Jesuit, Blount, who was not commu- ly suspected of complicity in past
nicative. Asked about the oath, events, it is thought that he will not
"Risposi di no, perche qual giura- fare so ill as they believed at first,
menta, dissi, ne da me, ne da qualsi- By his Majesty's orders he is treated
uoglia altro Catolico si puo pigliar in prison in a manner that shows a
con buena conscienza. ' ' Stonyhurst kindly disposition towards him ' '

183

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

The effects of the letter were gratifying to Bancroft. The Jesuit
Vice-Prefect declared, in his yearly Report to the General of the
Jesuits at Rome,1 that "nothing in all these thirty years of perse
cution has done such injury to religion as this scandalous example
of the Archpriest, whose very virtues have helped to lead men
astray." "It is further said that he has persuaded himself that
the Archbishop of Canterbury means well to the Catholics."
"There are many who follow the Archpriest ... (of whom) most
have forsworn themselves; others abusing their false conscience,
persuade themselves that they have acted aright." He further
reported that in the North the Catholics were cruelly persecuted.
"Their cattle are driven away, their houses ransacked, walls are
broken down, chests and secret drawers are forced and searched.
On all hands we hear of nothing but the violence and rigor of the
authorities . . . (but) by taking the oath one is spared these
outrages, the rage of the persecutors is softened, and gentler treat
ment experienced from the Government and its officers." The
official head of the Jesuits felt himself bound to report to his supe
rior that the severities of the law fell only on the recalcitrant who
refused the oath. ' ' We have to bear the full brunt of the storm. ' 7
The Jesuit accounts are therefore quite naturally full of complaints
of the severity of the measures by which the Catholics were con
strained, for, with some exceptions, only their followers suffered.
Assuming that the rest, being renegades and deserters, were not to
be counted among the true sheep, by that means we arrive at these
amazing statements, that, because the Jesuit supporters were in
difficulties, all the English Catholics were severely handled.

In September, the Bishop of Durham had summoned before him
some twenty noted recusants, of whom six at once took the oath,
several more promised to take it, and the rest were undecided.
The Bishop somewhat doubted their sincerity, but hoped they would

•u 2 iac\v T7 „„„+»„„ r*i who is now in prison some one of
(September ^ 1607. Venetian Cal- f ^ ^ gucceed in break

endar, XI, no. 59. See also no. 25 7 1fln7 r, .,

and 37.) "All else is quiet: and in mg it.' (October-, 1607, Ibid.

matters of religion it seems that cus- no. 86.)

torn makes the regulations lighter for 1 Letter of 1607. Printed, very

the Catholics. And so, there may likely with important omissions, in

well be peace for a period about such Foley, Records, VII, Part II, 978, at

subjects, unless, some event in Ire- 982.

land or the Pope's rumoured inten- 2 Foley, Records, VII, Part II, 981.

tions to substitute for the Archpriest

184

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

be "worthie of that great and undeserved favoure which they so
plentifully receyve at your Maiesties hands. ' ' x

The overt action of Blackwell in favour of the oath called forth a
second papal breve against the oath2 and a letter from Cardinal
Bellarmine,3 the great champion of the Church and a scholar
worthy of admiration in any age. He set forth at some length
a variety of reasons against the legality of the oath which he sus
tained by citations from the Church Fathers; and to this, Black-
well replied with an even longer epistle and even more citations.*
As usual, Bancroft proceeded to turn the incident to account by
printing and distributing both letters, in February 1607-8, together
with all of Blackwell's examinations of the previous July, his letter
to the English Catholics, and some other timely material.5 Black-
well was once more summoned, and signed before a large and
dignified body of the High Commission, a copy of his examination
with an attest acknowledging it to be his action.6 All this had
been so timed that, when the gentry and others in attendance at
the law courts during Hilary term, were ready to leave for their
homes, this pamphlet was one of the things they were able to take
with them.

At last all was ready. Bancroft believed that the overwhelming
majority of Catholics were eager to take the oath, but were timorous
of disobeying the directions of their spiritual advisers. Now, Black-
welPs letter of July had been well distributed and should have

1 Botfield, Original Letters, I, 111- English editions.

113. September 24, 1607. One in French was published in

2 August 23, 1607. Printed in Tier- Amsterdam in 1609. The book was
ney, IV, cxlvi. also published in Latin. There are

s September 28, 1607. Tierney, IV, manuscript copies in Additional MSS.

cxlviii. 30662, f. 72 ff. in French. It was

* November 13, 1607. Tierney, IV, certainly widely circulated. Perhaps

<jlii. the most remarkable poinf about the

5 The full title is as follows : A tract is that, issued by the King 's

large examination taken at Lambeth, printer, it nevertheless calls Clement

according to Ms Majesty's direction ''Pope" instead of "Bishop of

point by point of Mr. George Black- Eome ' ' and gives Bellarmine his

well, made Archpriest of England by title. Such quasi-official recognition

Pope Clement 8 upon occasion of a of the Pope's authority was more

certain answere of his, without the than had been given in England for

priuitie of the State, to a Letter three-quarters of a century.
lately sent unto him from Cardinal 6 One examination took place in

Bellarmine, blaming him for taking December and perhaps another in

the oath of allegiance . . . Printed January. See a copy of the proceed-

by Eobt. Parker, Printer to the ings with the King's own marginal

King's most excellent Majestie, 1607. notes in Harleian MSS. 6807, f. 190.
There seem to have been at least three

185

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

produced all the effect that could reasonably be expected of it; a
certain number of influential gentry had been offered the oath, as
a matter of example to others, and had taken it ; the new book just
issued would furnish all concerned with reasons for action on both
sides of the controversy. The moment had arrived when the Arch
bishop saw that a little temporal pressure circumspectly applied
would, very likely, as in Blackwell's case, suffice to turn the scale.

On February 15, 1607-8, the King addressed the judges who
were about to set forth on their circuits ; and gave them what were,
so far as we know, the first explicit general orders for the enforcing
of the penal laws of 1606. He directed, according to Francis
Bacon's notes of his speech,1 that "the oth of allegeance (was) to
be generally ministred, but shewd a mild inclinacion towards (such)
as were not Apostatans since his tyme, nor practicers; and
comended to favor such Preests as would take ye oath of Alle
geance." When James had finished, the Privy Council summoned
the judges into another room, and gave them more explicit orders.
"No preest to be executed yt would take the oth of allegance," or
was willing to argue or confer about it; and "even of them, spar
ingly. The K(ing)'s woord was No torrent of blowd: poena ad
paucos." On inquiry, it developed that scarcely a half dozen
priests were at that moment in jail, showing that there had been as
yet "no watch or search." In regard to lay recusants, the new oath
was only to be offered to those who were active " practizers, " to
recusants already indicted, and to noncommunicants. It was not
even to be offered to quiet and well-behaved Catholics who had
created no open scandal of recusancy. "Noncommunicants" were
to mean only the obstinate and seditious ; and, inasmuch as a person
might take the oath and yet neglect to appear at communion, "it
was probably inferred that yf some of the Indited by ye K(in°0s
speach were to be spared, a fortiore those which are no recusants."
Salisbury stated that, in his opinion, by condemnation of the oath
of allegiance, the Pope wished to urge the King to a rigorous
enforcement of the laws, which in its turn would arouse in the
Catholics despair and hatred of the Government, encourage plots,
and promote quarrels of all sorts, "ye better to expose this realm to
a pray." And for that very reason, added Bancroft, the more

i Taken in the room at the time. Printed most faithfully by Spedding
in Life and Letters of Bacon, IV, 90.

186

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

extreme the papal measures were, the more lenient should be our
own. In June, 1608, a Commission issued for letting and disposing
of recusants' goods and of the two parts of their land forfeited
by law. In July appeared Letters Patent, directed to Bancroft,
the Lord Chancellor, and most of the bishops and law officers,
against Jesuits and seminaries and to "reform errors, heresies and
schisms whatsoeuer within the Kealme of England. ' n

Thus, the Catholics, as a whole, were by no means threatened by
the Government,2 though most of them were, no doubt, in terror for
fear they should hear a pursuivant's knock upon the door. It is
this anticipatory fright of which we read so often.3 Constant
advantage was taken of the liberal offer of time to confer with the
bishops and justices over the legality of the oath ; and, indeed, some
men were still undecided after a year or eighteen months, while
others were suddenly taken too ill to travel to the Quarter Sessions,
where the oath was administered, professing, however, their readi
ness to appear as soon as they were convalescent.4 There were
some astonishingly long illnesses thus recorded. Sometimes, when
the justices came in person to the residence of the recusants, they
found them away on a visit. "From thence, he went to Mr.
Symonds, a man of great estate, whose wieffe being a recusant con
victed, hee answeared us, that his wieffe was gone before our com-
ming, for that shee would not take the othe of allegeance." 5 Many
Catholics were willing to take the oath, with a protestation, said
Mush, speaking of the spring of 1610.6 Some priests approved a
device by which they first protested "I will take this oath so far

1 Both in Patent Roll, 6 Jac. I, f ,,• ,, March 24 leoz. ^

Part 30, dated June 1 and July l! °f thl8' TOTT, leos. Venetian Cal-

For their drafting see Lansdowne endar, XI, no. 215.)
MSS. 153, f. 232, 234; holograph let- 3 See some excellent cases in Taun-

ters by Lake and Caesar. ton's Jesuits, 360 and 364, for the

2 This is confirmed by the Venetian years 3611 and 1616. The Jesuit ac-
Ambassador, which shows that it was counts are also full of what they
current news. ' ' In England, too, for expect will happen to them, but it will
some time past they have shut their prove to be true in nine cases out of
eyes to much (of Catholic doings) and ^en> where the law was really exe-
it is growing ever clearer that the cuted, that the sufferer was an obsti-
King is averse from punishment and na.te and well-known Jesuit sympa-
persecution, provided that he is not thiser.

provoked by recollection of past ter- 4 Tierney, IV, clxx, May 20, 1611,

ror, which God prevent." The Arch- relating to these earlier years,
priest has been deposed, "the bull r> Egerton Papers, 1612, 454.

has not yet come to the King's no- 6 Tierney, IV, clxxviii, August 19,

tice." Great wrath is expected. 3.611» describing events of these ear-

"Many ecclesiastics here are aware lier years.

187

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

forth as it concerneth my temporal duty or obedience to the King,
after which they thought they might kneel down and take the oath
verbatim. ' ' Other laymen proposed to say to the judge : ' * This oath
containeth many difficult points which we do not understand, (as
in truth, there be as many divers expositions of every part thereof
as there be heads among us,) but to so much of it only, as doth
truly concern our temporal allegiance to the King, we will and do
swear sincerely and willingly — and without more ado, kneel down
and lay our hand upon the book. ' ' 1 Any one who appeared before
the bishops or justices and denied the oath, was perforce committed
at once, "wherefore, in policy, both justices, bishops and others,
have thought it best not to appear. ' ' 2

The Bishop of Chester seems to have interpreted some letter sent
him from London as an order to cease all proceedings against
recusants in his diocese. He was soon informed by the Privy Coun
cil, that the letter was not intended "to stay the ecclesiasticall
course, but to wishe a moderate use of it. " * * His Majestys meaning
is not, nor was then, that you should be in any wayes restrayned
from usinge your authoritie, whenesoeuer you shall see cause in
your discretion. Only we wish that if the proceedinge ecclesiasti
call be only for the poynts of the communion, that such discretion
and temper be used, by your officers therein to be sparing in it,
savinge when notorious occasion of publicke scandall or audacitie
of some obstinate persons shall require it. ' '

A year later, in a letter from London to the Earl of Rutland, we
learn that Salisbury, the Lord Treasurer, "comending the quiet
behaviour of recusants and acquiting them frome being culpable of
that monstrous gunpowther treason, thought it was expedient that
they should be more mildly delt withall then in former times;
whereas some pursuivants have violently behaved themselves in
Oxfordshire this sommer, his Lordship hath commanded that upon
their returne they shalbe apprehended, comitted to Newgate and
punished according to the qualitie of their offence."4 The next
month, (November, 1609) no less a person than the Lord President
of the Council in the Marches of Wales, in a confidential letter to
Salisbury himself, detailed some interesting information about a

1 Tierney, IV, clxxviii. October 24, 1608.

2 Tierney, IV, clxxxii, October 6. 4 Report on the Eutland Papers, 1,
11, 420, November 28, 1609.

88. P. Dom. Jac. I, 37, no. 28,

188

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

quarter of England far removed from Chester and the Midlands,
showing that in Herefordshire the clauses of the oath of allegiance
referring to the power of the Pope were left out altogether. ' ' Mr.
Justice Williams, in the Publique Assembly of the Country, yeelded
such favour unto them in ministeringe the oath in some points con
cerning the Pope (as hath giuen an example to others of that kinde
to refuse to take the same) as by the Law it is penned, and sett
forth. In Example whereof, one Charnocke . . . absolutely re
fused to take the sayd oath (there) being distinctly read unto him,
especially in these pointes, viz : the Pope 's power to excommunicate
the King; to discharge the subiectes of there new allegiance to his
Majestic, alleadging that at Hereford Assizes the Judges did not
so stricktly exact the oath of the Recusants presented to them. ' ' l

Sir Edward Phelips, who had been travelling extensively in the
North upon the execution of the law, reported to Salisbury that
recusancy had greatly decreased in Lancashire and Northumber
land, and ' * would much more, if a hand of moderate discipline were
usually carried out amongst them." All but a few had conformed
to the laws, and the country was quiet. ''But I cannot soe much
comend neither the peace nor conformity of the people of York
shire and the Busshoprick for in both those we founde many felons
and doe not finde the Recusants much to decrease in respecte they
are countenanced by some gentlemen of noate. ' ' 2

These rather extended illustrations, of the general spirit of
leniency and consideration in which the laws of 1606 were adminis
tered, have been grouped together not only for convenience, but to
show, by these citations, each of which is in itself unimpeachable
evidence, which concern all parts of Catholic England, and which
were written at different times by different men, that this policy
was not one assumed for the month of February, 1607-8, but was
carried out consistently over a considerable period of years.3 The
attitude of the Bishop of Chester, the punishment of the too zealous
pursuivants in Oxfordshire, the action of Justice Williams in

1 S. P. Dom. Jac. I, 49, no. 26. from the Council to judge dexterous-
November 13, 1609. Ealph Eure to ly with the Catholics who as far as
Salisbury. I see, would not be viewed unfavour-

2 S. P. Dom. Jac. I. 48, no. ably in this Kingdom were it not for
25. September 10, 1609. the fear of the instigations of the

3 These are amply confirmed by the Pope, their Chief." (Venetian Cal-
ether less trustworthy material. end XI no 457

Judges going circuit have orders

189

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Herefordshire, are not matters which can be fabricated or ques
tioned. Couple to this evidence the loud outcry in the Parliament
of 1610 that the laws were not enforced, and it becomes evident that
the sweeping statements of the sufferings of Catholics in England
are not supported by contemporary evidence, for even the Jesuit
superior was forced to admit that those who took the oath of alle
giance were not molested, and in addition he complained of the
number that had taken it.

While it is thus sufficiently clear that the Government did not
enforce the laws of 1606 to the letter; and that the Catholics, as a
whole, did not suffer to any considerable extent, nevertheless it
must be confessed that there was a great deal of individual suffering
in many parts of the country. This, however, was due to the zeal
or malice of professional spies and informers, and of individual
local officers.1 The policy of the Government was such that con
siderable grants of authority had to be made to the local officials,
with allowance of a great deal of discretion in their use. Once
armed with such authority and left to use it as he saw fit, many a
man turned it to improper personal purposes. Feuds and rivalries
among the various members of a family, or between different fami
lies, individual selfishness, avarice, and greed were all excited and
aided by the new law.2 Many a Protestant related to a rich Cath
olic found himself considering whether he might not, under the
new law, inherit the lands, if the proper conviction could be
secured against his relative. In a good many cases, justices of the
peace, who longed to secure a preponderance of influence in their
county, would see that their great Catholic rivals escaped none of
the inconveniences of the situation. Naturally, too, the great
oppressed the small wherever good opportunity offered, and many
a small freeholder or copyholder, with a few acres and half a
dozen cattle, was convicted of recusancy and his property forfeited,
where his rich and powerful neighbours heard mass in peace. Other
influences tended to this same result. Where the emissaries of the
Council had been ordered to secure convictions, the small must
suffer when the authorities from London did not possess sufficient
physical force to oppress the great whom they would have been glad
to convict. There was, therefore, much suffering entailed by the

i This is particularly true of the 2 There are some shocking cases of

work of Spiller and his aids in York- this sort in C. J. Cox's Derbyshire
shire and the North. Annals.

190

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE ACCEPTED

penal laws of 1606, despite the leniency with which they were
meant to be enforced. Some men lost everything and died out
casts; others suffered exile, as well as loss of property; still others
lingered for years in the horrible jails of the period and finally
crept forth with the vigour of manhood sucked out of them by
fever and dysentery. The Puritans, who sat in Parliament in 1606
and 1610 and denounced the violence and cruelty of the bishops
toward the deprived ministers, ''whereby our souls are starved,"
recked little indeed of the Yorkshire and Herefordshire Catholics
suffering the more real pangs of hunger and cold. While they
complained that their ministers could no longer preach, they paid
little heed to those poor Catholics who had lost everything but life
and honour. The Pilgrims who went to Holland certainly expe
rienced no harder fate than did the exiled Catholics. Yet the Puri
tan cry still rose for more severity, for harsher laws, and for the
strict execution of the laws that existed. It is instructive to
compare the petitions of the Puritans, and of the so-called Puritan
House of Commons of 1610, with the letters of the "bloody" bishops
written at the time of the deprivation of the Puritan ministers in
1605.

Significant an event as was the acceptance of the oath of alle
giance in the history of the Catholics of England, it was fraught
with even greater consequences for the Established Church. By
accepting the government of James as lawful, and by professing
temporal allegiance to it, the Catholics virtually acquiesced in the
existence of Protestantism in England, and tacitly promised to
refrain from further attempts to extirpate it. Although the Estab
lished Church was not so much as mentioned in the new oath, nor
alluded to in the letters and proclamations concerning it, the
acceptance of the oath was, in fact, a recognition by the Catholics
of the legal right of the Established Church to exist.

191

CHAPTER VIII

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

When the news reached Rome that Blackwell had not only dis
regarded the letters of Cardinal Bellarmine, but had failed to
promulgate the papal breve; and had, in addition, allowed the
English Government to publish all his statements in favour of the
oath, the Curia became convinced that some decisive step was im
perative. By a breve of February 1, 1608, George Blackwell was
deposed from the office of Archpriest of the Seminarists, a step
expected in England for some time; and George Birkhead, one of
his assistants, was appointed his successor.1 Like Blackwell, Birk-
head was a quiet man of considerable learning and undoubted
piety. Parsons and the Cardinal Protector thought, as they had
when they had nominated Blackwell himself, that here was a man
whom they could control. They failed, however, to count upon
the situation in England, which in a little over a year converted
Birkhead, as it had Blackwell, to the views of the seculars.

Shortly after Easter, the new Archpriest made his way to Lon
don and communicated the news of his appointment by letters to
the different priests. He reported to Bubalis that Blackwell and
Charnock were astonished beyond measure, and the rest somewhat
dazed.2 In consonance with his orders from Rome, he next issued
an admonition to the Catholics in general, in which he forbade
them to take the oath, and also directed letters of similar import to
his assistants.3 In the removal of Blackwell, who favoured the oath
and opposed the Jesuits, the seculars saw only new evidence of
the papal determination to further the general cause at the ex
pense of the Catholics then in England. At first, they meditated
an appeal to Rome,4 but more moderate counsel led them to appoint

1 Tierney, IV, civil. •* From an original Latin narrative

2 Tierney, IV, clix, April 13, 1608. of the event by Edward Bennet,

3 Tierney, IV, clxiv, Birkhead to printed by Tierney, V, 13, note, of
the Superior of the Jesuits, June 24, which these sentences following are-
1610, describing his actions at this almost a translation.

time.

192

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

a deputation to wait upon Birkland himself. Toward the end of
April, then, the new Arehpriest found himself confronted with
three demands, presented with the practically unanimous consent
of his clergy, asking him, first, to obey the clause of the papal
breve of 1602 which forbade him to consult with the Jesuits; sec
ondly, to choose his assistants from the secular leaders ; and lastly,
to govern them, as a pastor and father, without striving to erect
another organisation on the ruins of their independence. He
solemnly promised to do in all three respects as they would have
him, and in return received their submissions and assurances of
obedience. But he soon laid the seeds of discord by opening a
correspondence with Parsons at Rome, which, though innocent
enough and well intentioned, was instantly misinterpreted by his
followers.1 He also ordered the priests in the Clink prison, who
had valiantly upheld the oath of allegiance, to conform at once to
the papal breve or suffer the loss of their faculties and privileges ;
and, one year later, May 16, 1609, he declared them deprived.2

As a result, the seculars paid no more attention to his orders
than they had to the Pope's breve, and became at once suspicious
of everything he did. Without more ado, they forwarded to Rome,
in the summer of 1608, three forms of an oath of allegiance,3 to
one of which they hoped to secure the papal approval; and to all
of which Bancroft had no doubt already assented. A memorial
with a form of oath, which the subscribers offered to take, was
presented to the English Privy Council, and was signed by Birk-
head, his assistants, the provincials of the Benedictines, Francis
cans, and Jesuits, but nothing further was heard of it.4 In due
time, came from Rome the usual reply that the Holy Father "dis-
liketh them all or any other (oath) whatever that directly or in
directly may concern the authority of the See Apostolic. ' ' 5 This

1 Much of it has been printed by * Tierney, V, xl.

Tierney, V. 5 Tierney, V, xlii. September 4,

2 Tierney, IV, clx, May 2, Birk- 1608. The sentiment at Rome was
head to the priests in the Clink; well expressed by Bellarmine, De
clxi, May 16, 1609. Birkhead to Dr. Eoma Pont. lib. V, ci. "Most cer-
Smith at Rome. tain it is that in whatsoever words

3 Tierney, V, xliii. Tierney has the Oath is conceived by the adver-
also printed, (IV, cxc, and cxci,) saries of the Faith in that Kingdom,
two forms of an oath which prouably, it tends to this end, that the author-
though not certainly, date from this ity of the Head of the Church in
time. They cannot be positively iden- England may be transferred from the
tified with these forms sent to Rome successor of St. Peter to the succes-
and mentioned here. They are sor of King Henry VIII. ' '

printed infra. Appendix.

193

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

was conclusive enough, and provoked something very nearly akin
to despair among those who still clung to the papal pretensions.
' ' This scandalizeth all sorts of Catholics exceedingly, ' ' wrote Mush
concerning these events,1 "that he should so little regard our af
flictions ; for they looked rather his holiness should have sent them
a lawful oath of allegiance . . . than to forbid a lawful thing, we
being in so great extremity and our means of sending to Rome so
little and so difficult, or rather impossible, till all be undone. The
axe is over our heads, to fall if we refuse; and we must send to
Rome ! — Oh ! how great care whether we perish or be safe ! " " The
minds of all Catholics are perplexed," noted the Venetian Ambas
sador, "and they earnestly desire that the Pontiff should be truly
informed of the terrible consequences which the prohibition of the
oath must entail, there being no doubt that the real way to sup
port the Catholic faith in this Kingdom is to proceed in such a
manner that Catholics shall not fall under suspicion of those
machinations against which the oath is directed. ' ' 2

The appointment of Blackwell in 1598 had alienated the secu
lars from the Jesuits; the Gunpowder Treason had sent nearly all
the waverers into the secular camp; and filled them all with ap
prehension of evil to come, and with suspicion of the Society. The
removal of Blackwell, the continued refusal of the Pope to coun
tenance the oath of allegiance in any form, was producing among
the secular priests and laity at large a conviction that the Curia
did not care how much they suffered; and engendered, too, a
sentiment which openly showed itself in scorn of the Archpriest's
orders and began to look suspiciously like a rejection of papal
authority. Instead of being satisfied with one refusal, they inter
preted it to mean, as Mush said, that another appeal was neces
sary. They felt sure that the Pope would not refuse to relieve
them if only the condition of affairs could be brought to his per
sonal attention. The head and front of offending, the great stum
bling block in the path of peace, was the attitude of the Jesuits ; the
second difficulty lay in the lack of English Catholic bishops. "The
greatest cause of the aberation," declared Colleton to Birkhead,
"was (as I thought) the authoritie which some of the fathers
practise over the priestes in choosing our superiors and agents and

1 Tierney, IV, clxxix.

2 Venetian Calendar, XI, no. 237, April, 1608.

194

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

in setting downe lawes for us without assent, consultation, or pri-
vitie of our bodie : and in annexing also such kind of faculties to
some of them, as haue hardly a president, which is not suspension
from use of faculties, but utter losse of faculties ipso facto without
declaration."1 The remedy was bishops. "Paul quite undoeth
this poor church," wrote Mush, "by depriving it of ordinary pas
tors, by which our Savior appointed all particular churches to be
governed. Verily, here is nothing but most lamentable confusion,
debates and factions among both clergy and people ; and every day
much worse than other, whiles every one is left to themselves
and none to govern or have care of the whole. We are all im
mediately under Paul. He is far absent ; can he then, with safety
of his own soul, keep this charge, without sending and appointing
some other bishops in his place to minister necessaries unto so
great a people?" But the seculars, having refused to obey the
Archpriest, were in a quandary; for, having rebelled against the
only constituted Catholic authorities in England, they had now
no legal standing at all. Without leadership, without organisa
tion of some sort authorised or confirmed by the Pope, their fol
lowers would soon drift away, the laity would soon become sus
picious of men who apparently denied the papal authority, and
every object for which they had striven would be irretrievably
lost. Hence, the desire for Catholic bishops, which had been so
strong ten years earlier, and which indeed had been kept alive
ever since, was revived with great eagerness. The problem was,
however, not of a nature to be solved by one remedy alone.

In reality, the situation was so exceedingly complicated and
confused, that it was difficult to see what the remedy should be.
There were, at that time in England, the secular priests educated
at foreign seminaries, with the Archpriest at their head; the Je
suits, under a Vice Prefect; the Benedictines and a few Francis
cans, each under their own officers.3 None of them had explicit

i S. P. Com. Jac. I, 36, no. 24, of their presence and hostility to the

September 20, 1608. Keported in a Jesuits, had grown in strength very

letter from John Colleton himself to rapidly. The rise of these other

Father Parsons. Printed with mod- orders of the regular clergy is one of

ernised spelling by Tierney, V, xlvii. the significant developments of Cath-

See, however, V, xx. olic history in England after the

• Tierney, IV, clxxix. death of Elizabeth, and marks the

3 These Orders had only recently beginning of the era of practical tol-

obtained a foothold, and encouraged eration. The seculars believed the

by Bancroft, who saw the advantages Benedictines were more favored by

195

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

authority over the laity or over one another ; but, whilst the regular
orders were upon their ordinary status, the seminarist clergy were
in a very anomalous condition. It was never true that the Arch-
priest stood at the head of a well-compacted organisation, with
definite forms, pawers and traditions.1 He was in reality a tem
porary dictator, whose behests were executed by eight or more as
sistants, each supreme in his own district; and whose authority
was absolute except for appeal to the Curia at Rome. Like all
dictatorships, the office possessed few legal forms, no legal tra
ditions, and very ill-defined prerogatives and powers. If it be
came necessary to discipline a priest, the Archpriest alone, upon
his own initiative, from such information as he was able to gather,
could arbitrarily suspend the offender, or deprive him of his fac
ulties. Appeal was difficult, and in all minor matters his discre
tion was absolute; for he was compelled to report to no one, and
had none near him to spy upon his movements.2 The weight of
tradition, the necessity for the observance of legal form, which
curbed the powers of the regular church officials, were all lacking
in this case. It was essentially a military organisation, meant to
bind together, in the face of persecution, the few faithful upon
whose efforts depended the vitality of the faith in the breasts of
the English Catholics. However necessary this may have been when
Parsons conceived the office of Archpriest, it was by no means es
sential in 1608, for the assumption on which it rested had disap
peared — the Catholics had no longer to face the determined at
tempts of the State to exterminate them. On the contrary, the
State, under the direction of Bancroft, was indirectly assisting
their attempts at organisation. Moreover, the nucleus for an or
dinary episcopal system already existed: many of the priests had

the State than the Jesuits, "being you can (having admitted my ap-

men who would not deale in state peal) take this severe course so in-

matters as the Jesuits did," and finitely to my own hurt." Colleton

would seem to have made some over- to Blackwell, March 10, 1600-1. Tier-

tures to them for assistance in their ney, III, cxlv. "It is not his holi-

battle with the latter. Stonyhurst ness' intention, and never was, that

MSS. Anglia, A, III, no. 89. July in exercising of my authority for cor-

26, 1608. rection of manners and conserving of

1 There is no full statement by any our ecclesiastical discipline and peace
contemporary of his position, and it in this time and in these difficulties
has to be pieced together from many we should be bound in anywise to the
scattered sources. form of contentions and court trials. ' '

2 That "being the imposer of these Blackwell, manifesto of June 17, 1600.
heavy censures you would not refuse Tierney, III, cxli.

to acquaint me by what law or right

196

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

already been assigned definite residence x in some district where
they were expected to minister to the spiritual needs of the laity;
the alms fund, contributed by the wealthy, was sufficient to
provide maintenance for them all, if only it could be properly
administered; the State was willing to see the bishops appointed,
provided all Catholics would take the oath of allegiance, and pro
vided the leaders would maintain secret relations with some bishop.
There were, however, several very real obstacles besides the papal
reluctance to give the desired orders.

The clergy whom the Archpriest directed were almost exclusively
educated abroad at the seminarist colleges at Douay, Rome, Valla-
dolid, and the like, where the certificate of fitness, signed by the
rector, was a necessary preliminary to the receipt either of a de
gree or of the ordinary faculties of a priest. Inasmuch as the rec
tors of most of the colleges were Jesuit sympathisers, and inasmuch
as the right to send students to the colleges had passed out of the
hands of the English clergy into the control of influential Jesuits
in Europe, the Archpriest and the English local clergy, except so
far as they were willing to become amenable to the Jesuits, had
no influence whatever upon the character and fitness of the clergy
sent on the English mission. Hence, the movement set on foot by
the seculars for the control of the seminarist colleges, Bunder the
specious suggestion of providing education for controversial writ
ers,2 meant an attempt to secure the right to determine the quality
of the clergy of whom their institution was composed. The Jesuits,
too, had for some years administered the alms fund with the con
nivance of the Archpriest,3 and had spent the bulk of it abroad.
To have an archpriest free from Jesuit influence at the head of a
body of priests while the membership and the income of the or
ganisation were firmly in the grip of the Jesuits, had produced an
anomalous situation, of which the latter had been quick to take
advantage. They had collected the money so far as possible by
their own agents,4 and had attempted to starve out the seculars by
withholding the funds. As fast as men faithful to the interests
of the Society could be pushed through the colleges, so as to re
ceive a faculty (and some of them stayed only a few months), they

iTierney, V, 7, note: Ixxxiv for a Tierney, IV, clxxx, note,

cases. * Heburne to Blackwell, Archpriest

2 Tierney, V, viii, Ivi, Ixxi. Controversy, II, 224.

197

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

were shipped over to England,1 partly from a desire to embarrass
the Archpriest, who had to provide residence and income for them,
but chiefly from the hope of gradually changing the balance of the
secular clergy. But both schemes only swelled the adherents of the
seculars, for, after the Jesuit follower had suffered for a few
months from exposure and scant food, and after he learned that
the lack of money arose from the Jesuit administration of the
alms fund, he was often among the loudest in his denunciations
of the Fathers. Others still renounced Catholicism and joined the
English Church.

There was, therefore, no doubt that the confusion was great.
Four separate bodies of Catholic clergy, without legal connection
with one another, and none of them with authority from the Pope
to do more than to make converts, were struggling to influence the
English laity to follow them. The alms fund, meant to support
the seculars, was controlled by the Jesuits and turned to their
uses; and the colleges for the education of the clergy, whom the
Archpriest was to rule, were governed by Jesuits and Benedictines.
Couple to this diffusion of energies and this warring of factions,
a further split which divided all the groups into men in favour
of the oath of allegiance and those bitterly opposed to it; and an
additional* schism between the seculars and the regulars over the
inauguration of episcopal authority ; and it will be readily appre
ciated that the situation was complex in the extreme. Then, among
the seculars who were willing to take the oath of allegiance, there
was a party which followed Blackwell and Bishop, and another
which obeyed Mush and Colleton and which later gave in its ad
hesion to Birkhead, the new Archpriest. The papal breve for
bidding the oath of allegiance caused further schism, because part
of the priests (on the whole the Blackwell faction) were ready to
take the oath in the face of the prohibition, and others, who had
hitherto been favourable to it, now hesitated and drew back. Cer
tainly, if Bancroft's sole object, when he undertook the negotia
tions with Bluet in 1601, had been the sowing of discord among the
English Catholics to prevent concerted action against the State,

i Tierney, V, 8, note. ' ' The in- that now come hither are disgraced

sufficiency of such as come is another with, it is not to be expressed the

shame to us ... add hereunto the obloquy the Church of God endureth

lack of knowledge and learning or hourly. ' ' John Bennet to Smith,

other good parts that most of them October 19, 1609.

198

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

the effect must have far surpassed his expectations. Yet, despite
all this confusion and disagreement, three points were gradually
but clearly emerging from the chaos, — practical immunity from
the penal laws for all Catholics who would take the oath of temporal
allegiance and the union of all secular priests and laity in favour
of this settlement; the steady rise of hostility to the Archpriest
and to the influence of the regular clergy; and the equally unde-
viating progress of the sentiment in favour of English bishops.

Although the sentiment in favour of bishops was stronger in 1608
than at any time during the previous years, it had never been
wholly lost sight of, and some efforts had been constantly made to
procure their appointment. On May 16, 1606, Champney and
Cecil, two of the Appellants' envoys on the ill-fated mission of
1602, once more set out for Rome to plead for the appointment
of bishops.1 There they met the suave but crafty Parsons, who,
as usual, by one means and another, succeeded in preventing
them from reaching the Pope, and even went so far as to open
and suppress some letters written in favour of the project by
Lord Montague, although the missives were directed to the Pope
himself.2 The commission which the two priests carried, signed
by seventy seculars, availed them nothing, though it had more
than double the number of signatures that had been affixed in
1602. 3 In the following summer, the seculars sent a memorial to
the Pope.4 Again in the summer of 1608, finding the clergy strong
ly in favour of the project, Birkhead contemplated sending an en
voy to Rome, but allowed Parsons to dissuade him, to the great
disgust of many of the Catholics. "God give us all patience,"
wrote Lord Montague, "and the spirit of wisdom and fortitude,
whereby, like zealous champions of our catholic commonwealth, to
defend ourselves against father Persons, Mr. Fitzherbert, and their
adhering oppressors. . . . Thus it is; Mr. Fitzherbert hath most
resolutely written to Mr. Wilson (i.e. Birkhead) a mandatum from
his holiness that no procurators shall come to Rome, with other

1 Tierney, V, 10. The opinions in slurring the character of the seculars

their books seem to have been debated is in the same volume, no. 73.

at some length. The petition of Har- 2 Tierney, V, 16, note; xxvii, xxviii.

rison, procurator for the Archpriest, 3 It is curious that the Appeal of

presented to Bellarmine, May 18, 1602 should have been signed by 30

1606. is in Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia priests; that of 1606, by 70; and that

A, IIT, no. 60; the famous informa- of 1610-1611, by 140.

tion which he delivered to the Pope "Additional MSS. 30662, f. 72 b.

199

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

circumstances such as you may hear too soon : insomuch as Mr.
Smith dareth not to go. ... For mine own part I could wish the
journey to be respited for a time, till both the clergy and laity
had to each other bemoaned ourselves of that woful misery, where
to we may not need to doubt but the fathers of the society have
brought us, raising their lofty towers with our unfortunate ruins.
Alas ! what hath either the clergy or we of the laity demerited to
be debarred of access, either by person or by letter to the see
apostolic, for whose eminent prerogative we lose our lives and live
lihoods, while father Persons flourisheth, if he tyrrannize not, at
Rome, and his brethren here commonly scape all real danger. ' ' 1
Thus, the months slipped by till, with the coming of January,
1608-9, the idea again was broached by his adherents and accepted
by Birkhead, of sending an envoy to Rome, not openly to advo
cate the appointment of bishops to which Parsons had led them to
believe the Pope was irrevocably hostile,2 but to require an au
thoritative interpretation of the words of the breve of 1602 which
forbade Birkhead to consult with the Jesuits. In fact, the new
Archpriest had not been long in office before Parsons and Holtby
suggested to him how much benefit he could derive from their
wisdom and experience; and in due time informed him that the
breve really prohibited him only from concerting measures with
the Fathers which might be offensive to the English Government.3
With this ostensible object, then, of obtaining a new papal order,
but with the actual intention of viewing the state of affairs at
Rome, to ascertain whether the Jesuit was telling the truth, Dr.
Richard Smith and Father Thomas More set forth for Rome on
February 26, 1608-9.4 "They are desperate," wrote one of the
Flemish Jesuits, "for they give out that they will not return
homewards to England again, unless they prevail. It is thought
that they are accompanied with my Lord Montacute's letters (and
God grant not others) to deal for the removing of the fathers
(i.e. Jesuits) out of England and are to make large offers. . . .

1 Tierney, V, lii. wrote falsehoods to mislead Birk-

2 Tierney, V, Ivii. head. Parsons said ' ' that the prohi-
31 This correspondence, which is in bition was to be understood only of

some ways the most discreditable treating together matters of state or

thing Parsons ever did, is printed in that might justly offend the state.

Tierney, V, xxix-ciii. It can be V, xxxix.
demonstrated that Parsons wilfully * Tierney, V, 20, note.

200

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

We, here in Flanders, provide to prevent their intended plots, by
our letters with the first post. ' ' l

Their mission had Bancroft's full approval; and, indeed, while
the ports were so strictly guarded, the two could not possibly have
left England without his consent.2 Every thing was conducted
much more openly than had been the case in 1602 or 1606. A
large assemblage of priests had met writh Birkhead in London, to
draw up a commission and discuss the venture ;3 and had the Arch
bishop not been fully informed as to what was progressing, he
would have imprisoned them; and had he not in truth protected
them, they would all have been arrested by the pursuivants and
private searchers who swarmed in London. The great diligence
of Bancroft's agents had more than once attracted the attention
of the Venetian Ambassador; and, in fact, no better evidence of
the connivance of Bancroft at all these doings between 1606 and

i Tierney, IV, ccxix, April 9, 1609.

~ l ' Yet I have heard that no priest
was landed any time in England, but
the bishop (Bancroft) had a perfect
character of his temper and relations:
the easier brought about by him that
(in the estimation of the Puritans)
owned most of their tenets, being be
side no rigid persecutor of any who
had not in his composition the gall
of treason mixed with religion. . . .
And from this indulgence of the
archbishop grew more security than
danger, because such priests as were
connived at (the most of other or
ders) looked upon the Jesuits as
enemies, and all newcomers of their
owne under a no milder aspect then
intruders on their profit; and there
fore the more inquisitive after their
conditions, and if found pragmaticall,
it was no hard matter to purchase
their remove by the mediation of one
so neere the helme as the bishop was,
who, besides the quality of secrecy
remaining so constant to his promise,
as it was more safety than danger
for them to rely upon his word. And
that some cunning seminaries did in-
deavour the monopolizing amongst
themselves all the profit to be made
by the English catholickes I have a
presumption of mine owne from a
priest I met with on the other side
the water, who told me he lived farre

better during the tyranny (as he was
pleased to call it) of Queene Eliza
beth, then since the licence afforded
under King James, by which divers
young schollars of both universities
were daily tempted into orders, and
many (restrained before out of love
to their safety) did not goe over in
shoales, to the great detriment of the
old standers. Yet, notwithstanding
the incomparable diligence of this
prelate under two princes, for the
preservation of peace and unity, he
was abominated by the preciser sort.
... I confesse I have heard him
charactered for a joviall doctor, but
very zealous of the clergies revenue,
no lesse than his countries safety,
which he indeavoured to bring about
through a reduction of Britanny into
one forme of worship by the traine
of Calvine most rigidly opposed: but
the two contrary factions at court
(one of them thinking all things fit
to be destroyed the other laboured
to preserve) did, upon the vacancy of
every bishoprick, but one insutable to
their humours that had the luck to
prevaile. The cause the present in
cumbent did . . . unravell what his
predecessour had with more policy
and charity twisted. ' ' Osborne 's His
torical Memoirs, 62, 63, 65.
s Tierney, V, liii, and liv.

201

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

1610 could be desired than the continuance of these schemes; meet
ings, embassies, and quarrels. "Some four or five more, not yet
discovered are said to be intelligencers for the bishops, and to
give notice of all they know : whereof Leak is named for one, a
principal factor for bishops, with Mr. Colleton, Mush, R. S.
(Smith) Bishop, and others. My lord of Canterbury looketh daily
for news of R. S. his negotiations." x

But the Jesuit tales that nothing was done by More (who had
been left at Rome as the secular agent) without the approval of the
English Privy Council were no doubt exaggerations, for they were
meant to apply to all the details of the negotiation.2 Still, there
can be no doubt, that Salisbury, James, and most of the Privy
Council were cognisant, through Bancroft, of what was going on.
Meanwhile Blackwell had been well treated. His defence of the
oath had been issued, by Bancroft's order, in a Latin translation
early in the year 1610, and he was given a pension by the King
to supply the place of the money from the alms fund which the
Jesuits took good care he should not get. He was in name a pris
oner, but was free to go and come as he liked, visit whom he
pleased, and, as the Venetian Ambassador thought, gave no signs
of a desire to be discharged.3

Well aware that they should need all of the friends they could
possibly have at Rome, Smith and More first visited Father Bennet,
a Capuchin at Rouen ; then, avoiding the Jesuit-ridden college at
Douay, and the Pope 's nuncio at Paris, pushed on to Rheims where
they met Giffard, a secular, and Father White of the English
Benedictines, who came from Douay for the express purpose of
the conference. Thence the pair departed for Lorraine to inter
view Pitts and other English seculars.4 In May they reached Rome
where Parsons had for some time been prepared for their reception.
He told the Pope that only a few discontented priests were behind

i Holtby to Parsons, May 6, 1609. edge and approbation. Yet, all of

Tierney, V, 25, note. Tierney, jealous them could have sworn faithfully that

for the defence of the seculars, re- they held no intercourse with heretics

garded this as a calumny. Very pos- to the detriment of the Catholic reli-

sibly Colleton and Mush did not them- gion. Naturally, such a matter as

selves still deal with Bancroft in per- this is hardly demonstrable by ab-

son; and if they had, it was politic solute proof,
to deny it at such a time. Some one 2 Tierney, IV, clxv, note.

in the confidence of the priests cer- * Venetian Calendar, XT, no. 786.

tainly did keep Bancroft informed of February * ^

the state of affairs, with their knowl- ^Tilrn^V, Iviii and 51 note.

202

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

the demand for bishops ; and that, although the unpopularity of the
Archpriest made the confusion great, it would be much worse if
bishops were appointed. Peace and concord were necessary, but
the project of every malcontent could not be tried on his unsup
ported assurance that it was the long-sought remedy. There was
sound sense in what he said, and, had his facts been true, his po
sition would have been unassailable. He was unwilling, however,
to allow the priests to state their view of the situation, and hence
resorted to the same dilatory tactics he had used so successfully in
1602 and 1606. ' ' The old fox and all his Cubbes about him do what
they can to discredit him (Smith) as sent from a few malcon
tents," wrote Mush, who was anxious to aid by extending Smith's
powers. He thought that two points might be added to the peti
tion already signed; the one congratulating the Archpriest on the
beginning the agitation for a bishop ; the other, ' ' yt all the Jesuites
and there dependants abroad should be forbidden by a Breue to
deale any way with the Clergie or their affayres. ' ' He also wished
the priests to delegate to the Archpriest the right to subscribe
their names ' ' to what soeuer he pleas, ' ' and insisted that the main
point after all was the agreement of all the seculars to some one
thing.1

Smith was finally able to present to the Pope, on May 24, his
memorial regarding the breve of 1602, and received a verbal re
ply at once to the effect that the breve bound Birkhead as strictly
as it had his predecessor, and forbade any intercourse with the
Jesuit Fathers, a statement which was confirmed in writing on
June 6,2 by Cardinal Blanchetti. When Smith began to sound
rather cautiously about the bishops, Parsons told him, as he had
written to Birkhead in the previous September,3 that the unani
mous consent of all the English clergy would be necessary before
the Pope would consider the appointment of bishops. "You know
it is impossible," wrote Birkhead dejectedly in reply to Smith's
communication, "for me to get the names of all our brethren.
Some will never give their consent. ' ' 4 This was precisely what

1 Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia, A, VII, Other memorials to the Pope, begging
'. 59. Ex literis cuiusdam sacerdotis him not to deprive the clergy of

Eeligiosi. their faculties, for accepting the oath

2 Tierney V. Ixi, Ixv, xxxix, note. of allegiance, are f. 19 and 21.
The memorial seems to have been that 3 Tierney, V, xlii.

on the condition of the English clergy * Tierney, V, 19, note,

in Additional MSS. 31824, f. 18.

203

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Parsons thought. So matters dragged on and on, and nothing was
done. "It seemeth, our adversaries are too strong," wrote Birk-
head, "God, of his mercy, help us! Plain and sincere dealing
will bear no sway. " 1 "It seemeth they mean to weary me out. "
In the following spring (1610) Smith came back, discouraged.
He found, indeed, as Parsons had told him, that "Rome is a large
stable, wherein a horse may outlabor himself in kicking and
winching, without striking others that will keep themselves far
enough from him. ' ' 3

But the seculars in England did not give up hope. The Pope
had declared that the unanimous consent of all priests was neces
sary before he could appoint bishops, and the only way to obtain
that consent was by the subscribing of a petition, and by the col
lection of letters in favour of episcopal authority. This the chief
seculars proceeded to do with great vigour during May, June, and
July, of 1610. "The appellants run about more than ever," wrote
Holtby, the Jesuit Superior, "collecting votes in favor of bishops,
and their importunity is very troublesome in these times of perse
cution. They obtain the subscription of all those who show them
selves indifferent or not opposed to it. ... And among those who
desire Bishops there is a great controversy as to the number, and
how many should be Archbishops, etc. " 4 " We have nine score
names for Bishops which is three parts of the whole clergy," de
clared Birkhead on July 20, 1610.5 Harrington told Champney
that already two hundred votes in favor of episcopal government
had been collected, and that not forty more were outstanding in
opposition. It was difficult to collect these votes; "many priests
dwell so uncertainly like birds, now on one bush, and now on an
other, as they are hard to find: and others dwell so far off from

1 Tierney, V, Ixxxii, October 11, of the clergy actually registered their
1609. assent, if we assume that Mush's esti-

2 Tierney, Ixxxv, note. October 9, mate of 300 is correct. If we take the
1009. larger figures which the Jesuits gave,

s Tierney, V, xlv, Parsons to Birk- we shall, of course, find the propor-

head. September 13, 1608. tion less, which perhaps reveals one

4 Foley, Records, VII, Pt. II, 1017, reason for the overstatement of the

July-August, 1610. number of priests in England, of

•r' Tierney, V, 50, note. This and which the Jesuits seem to have been
the two succeeding quotations were guilty. On the other hand, the sec-
printed from the originals. Accord- ulars might as justly be suspected of
ing to Tierney 's estimate, however, an unwillingness to face the number
115 sent their names with votes, and of men opposed to them, were it not
29 sent only names, making 144 in that these figures come from their con-
all. So that only about fifty per cent. fidential letters to each other.

204

THE MOVEMENT FOR CATHOLIC BISHOPS

others, as, in these dangerous times, when none can appear in Lon
don, and few stir in the country, without taking, their voices could
not be had without imminent danger." But comparatively few
were found who actively opposed the petition for bishops. The Ca
puchins, the Benedictines, and the Franciscans were wholly in its
favour, for, like the seculars, they wished to break the exclusive
Jesuit influence over the English clergy.

Meanwhile, an obstacle had been removed from the road of the
secular priests. Robert Parsons died at Rome, on April 15, 1610.
When the news began to spread about, More wrote to Birkhead
that the Pope was reported to have remarked that ''we shall be
more quiet now that Parsons is dead." Yet, as Bancroft's death
six months later changed neither the policy of the secular priests
nor that of the Government, so Parsons ' death left the Jesuit plans
intact. The struggle went on without the two great leaders. The
long list of signatures collected in 1610, when finally transmitted
to Rome, did not produce the effect expected;1 and, in truth, it
was only after thirteen years of further effort, that William Bishop
was finally consecrated titular Bishop of Chalcedon in 1623; and
not till more than half a century later that Catholic bishops were
firmly established in England.

i Birkhead 's holograph letter ex- nal Protector, Stonyhurst MSS. Ang-
plaining the situation to the Cardi- lia, A, III, no. 101.

205

CHAPTER IX

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

Whatever was the legality of the flood of prohibitions l which
were issued in 1607 and 1608 by the courts of common law, there
can be little doubt that they threatened utterly to wreck the admin
istration of the Church and to crush its new institutional life. So
long as a prohibition was to be had upon the bare statement that
the ecclesiastical courts had refused to allow a plea of modus deci-
mandi; so long as the surmise that the case was neither matrimonial
nor testimentary would be accepted, no layman or cleric would
consider final any decision of the ecclesiastical court which dimin
ished his income. With the renunciation of the idea of ameliorating
incomes by this means, there disappeared the hope of improving the
character, learning, and ability of the clergy in general ; and there
could be no further thought of reforming pluralities and nonresi-
dence. With all these departed any expectations, which Bancroft
had entertained, of being able to dispense with the services of the
High Commission by so improving the capability of the individual
clergy that the old medieval constitution, which depended upon
the willingness of each man in the ecclesiastical fabric to perform
his own duty, would of itself discharge again its proper functions.
Without the power to fine and imprison, without the right to sum
mon men to London from all dioceses, without the authority to try
all subjects of ecclesiastical cognisance, the High Commission would
be a broken reed, utterly unfit for most uses to which it had been
put. Without it, the administration of the Church would again
sink into the lethargy in which Bancroft found it.

Yet the judges were not contented that the ecclesiastical courts
should be weak : they meant to destroy their power altogether ; and
to this end educed new claims. They declared that the oath ex

i This was the statement made by Coke said during the debates that
the ecclesiastics and admitted by the prohibitions had been "infinite
judges to be in substance true. number.

206

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

officio, as employed by the ecclesiastical courts and the High Com
mission, had been abrogated by the reformation statutes as repug
nant to the common law of England and to the statute of Henry V.1
If this contention was true, it certainly had not been heard of
before in any such uncompromising way, and would in effect nullify
a cardinal ecclesiastical procedure, without which a culprit could
not be legally examined, tried, convicted, or sentenced. Whether
it was or was not legal, and whether it was or was not unjustly
and tyrannically used, the oath ex officio certainly was the keynote
of ecclesiastical procedure and without it the ancient process, which
had been in vogue for centuries, would be simply unworkable. To
make matters worse, the judges declared that the use of excom
munication, for small offenses or for contempt of court, was not as
consonant with the customs and habits of English legal practice as
it might be ; and hinted very broadly that they would be glad if it
were restricted to purely ecclesiastical offences.2 This would rob
the courts of whatever punitive power the other claims of the
judges did not destroy. If the Commission might not fine or
imprison ; and if neither it, nor the ecclesiastical courts, might use
the oath ex officio, they would be weak enough; but to be reduced
to the use of excommunication, in such cases only as the common
law judges considered ecclesiastical and serious, would leave the
church courts merely power to suspend, and perhaps to deprive
the clergy; to admonish the laity, and to commend the use of
penance. These judicial "reforms" would, in fact, leave the Church
no effective power of any sort, no sanction whatever for the most
trivial order. Even had the judges' contentions been most equit
able ; had they been the law of the land beyond all possibility for even

i 2 Henry V, c. 3 provided that the meaning of the statute, it had never

libel should be granted to the party been enforced.

in the ecclesiastical court ' ' without 2 This appeared in various forms

any difficulty" "at what time the usually tangled with some other issue,

libel is grantdble by the laiv." The as in Smith vs. Smith, I, Croke, 741,

oath ex officio required a man to swear where a woman was excommunicated

to tell the truth in the case before by the High Commission for adultery,

he had seen the libel, and the common and, paying no attention to it, was

law judges almost unanimously inter- arrested by the pursuivants: she then

preted the statute's somewhat ambig- sued out a prohibition on the ground

uous phrasing to mean that the party that the High Commission had no

should be delivered the libel when- right to enforce excommunication by

ever he asked for it, even before he breaking into her house to arrest her

had taken the oath. Such, however, — it is not clear that actual violence

was not and had not been the eccle- was used — and the court sustained

siastical practice; if such was the the writ.

207

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

a bishop to doubt, the Church could not have consented thus tamely
to renounce forever its traditional authority. With such an issue
before it, the Church could make but one answer — a flat denial of
the justice and legality of the common law position. There was
therefore at stake more than a legal technicality, more than a
quibble about jurisdiction, more even than the relative authority
of the two systems of courts: the institutional and administrative
life of the Church itself was threatened with extinction.

Such, however, seemed to be the aim of the prohibitions issued
at this time. By these writs, the judges attempted to dictate to
the ecclesiastical courts what their decisions ought to be in cases
concerned purely with ecclesiastical administration. A patron had
presented a clergyman to a benefice, and, receiving notice from the
Bishop that he was insufficient, presented a second. Meanwhile,
the first candidate managed to remove the technical objections to
his induction, and was duly admitted by the Bishop ; whereupon
the second candidate attempted to oust him by a prohibition. The
judges upheld it, declaring that "the Bishop was a disturber, for
he, having once refused him for insufficiency, cannot afterward
admit him. ' ' * Even such a question as the exact status of depriva
tion was adjudicated by the common law, when the judge said that
"this Church became void by the not reading of the (Thirty-Nine)
Articles and there needed not any deprivation. For otherwise the
Statute should be defrauded at the Ordinaries pleasure if he would
not deprive."2 This last sentence made it clear that the judges
considered it their duty to oversee the episcopal execution of
statutes. Again, they undertook to say what was and what was
not assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles ;3 and did not stop there, but
proceeded to decree what was simony;4 when a marriage was or
was not prohibited by Levitical law ;5 and, having already delivered
a dictum concerning the bishop's power to deprive men, they added
another informing him how a candidate ought to be admitted.8
The Bishop had declared a man disqualified because he had not
presented, within the time limit, his letters of orders as deacon,
and various other papers required by the Canons of 1585. In his

i I, CroTce, 7, Bishop of Hereford 's * Id. 685, Smith vs. Shelbourn.

Case. 5 Moore, 907.

21, CroTce, 680, Baker vs. Brent & « I, CroTce, 241, Margaret Palmes

Robinson. vs. Bishop of Peterborough.

3 Id. 252, Smith vs. Clarke.

208

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

indignation at seeing another inducted into the benefice he expected
to receive, the disappointed candidate sued out a prohibition to
stay the Bishop from admitting another man. The common law
judges declared that the reasons assigned by the Bishop "were not
causes to stay the admittance and the clerk is not bound to shew his
Letters of Orders or Missive to the Bishop, but the Bishop must
try him upon examination for one and other." This ruling was
flatly contrary to the first Canon of 1585, which the Bishop had
been trying to put into effect.

Nor did the judges stop here their determination to rule the
state ecclesiastical; for, according to the Articuli Cleri of 1605,
"Prohibitions are awarded upon these surmises, viz.— that the libel,
the articles, the sentence of the ecclesiastical court, according to
the ecclesiastical laws, are grievous and insufficient, though the
matter there dealt withal be merely ecclesiastical." By this means,
the common law judges issued "consultations" ordering the plain
tiff in the ecclesiastical court to accept half his fees; or to be
content with the payment of his legacy, and lose his costs ; or the
prohibition should stand and he would not recover anything at
all.1 Here, under cover of restraining the ecclesiastical court from
holding plea of temporal matters, the judges were virtually
deciding ecclesiastical cases over which they confessed that they had
no jurisdiction; and tried to alter the sentences, and even the
amount of costs assessed, so as to make them harmonise better with
their own ideas of justice, utterly regardless of the fact that the
ecclesiastical judge had not in the least overreached his powers.2
The judges said in reply to this accusation that the bishops were
wholly mistaken. Although much weight ought to be given to the
judges' denial; and true, as it may very well have been, that they
entertained no thoughts of unduly interfering with the ecclesiastical
administration; there are enough prohibitions recorded by the
common lawyers themselves, in their own reports, to demonstrate
the essential truth of this contention.3

1 Articuli Cleri, art. xxiii. droit al party sur le plea le dismes:

2 A very specious plea of this type issint que les dismes et nemy le tener
was uttered by one of the judges in del plea est le substance del suit, per
Wright s case, 38 Eliz. Moore, 425. que le refusal del plea n 'est mater-

Le prohibition n 'est foundus sur ial."

ascun misdemeanor del spiritual judge s it is true that none of the Law

en tener de plea del chose que il ne Eeports can be supposed to contain

poit tener plea, mes est foundus sur the actual words spoken, so that we

ceo que lour ley ne point minister are really judging the attitude of the

209

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

The years that followed the Artieuli Cleri produced even more
radical examples of judicial interference with ecclesiastical admin
istration. In October, 1608, a minister was deprived of his benefice
for simony, nonresidence, and gross neglect of his charge; and yet
he secured a prohibition to suspend the sentence against him.
Several judgments for adultery and incest were practically nulli
fied, and the culprits allowed to go unpunished. A bailiff who had
dragged people out of church when on their knees at the com
munion rail; a man arrested for "scandalous abuse" of the eccle
siastical courts in general ; a man summoned to explain why he left
his wife without support ; another who asked a prohibition to avoid
paying the costs of a suit which he had just lost at ecclesiastical
law; all were granted prohibitions apparently without hesitation.
One case particularly scandalised the churchmen. One Sunday,
during the service at Burnham, a man named Green, who was prob
ably a fanatical Puritan, assailed the minister, forcibly stripped
his surplice from his back, and then, before the astounded con
gregation could recover its wits, escaped, carrying with him all
the bread and wine which had been prepared for the communion,
so that there could be no celebration of the Eucharist on that day.
Yet he had no difficulty in obtaining a prohibition to stop proceed
ings against him in the High Commission.1 Fuller's case was
thought by Bancroft and the King to exhibit a singular desire to
block the ecclesiastical procedure, without an atom of excuse that
anything of temporal cognisance was at stake ; and the awarding
of writ after writ, all of which the judges successively refused to
sustain, was, in the Archbishop 's eyes, a scandalous abuse of power.
Coke, however, was on pleasant terms with Bancroft and had done
all that he could, by personal interviews with prelates and judges,
to mend the breach between the King's Bench and the High Com
mission.2

court by the words of some reporter MSS. 424, f. 158. et seq.
of dubious authority. Such, however, 2 So considerable had been his ef-

is the condition of all the old law forts that, on November 30, 1607,
books, and yet common lawyers us- the King sent him a special message
ually see no harm in basing learned of thanks and begged him to "con-
and close distinctions on their word- tinew his advices and conferences
ing. If the Eeports are assumed by with my lo: of Canterbury, for the
the lawyers to contain the law exactly settling of those differences between
as it was delivered, historians may the King's Bench and the High Corn-
also accept them as valid evidence. mission." Hatfield MSS. 123, f. 66,

i Copies of the prohibitions issued November 30, 1607. Holograph,
in these cases will be found in Stowe Lake to Salisbury.

210

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

Meanwhile, the Archbishop had not been idle; and in these
three years, 1606-1608, no less than six notable tracts appeared,
espousing the side of the Church in these controversies. Dr. Cowell,
the Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge, and Master of Trin
ity Hall, had already figured prominently in the preparation of the
Canons of 1604; and now published, in 1605, at Bancroft's sugges
tion, his Institutiones Juris Anglicani, in which he maintained the
essential unity of both the ecclesiastical and common law in prac
tice and procedure ; and advocated the theory that inasmuch as the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction was now united to the Crown, the tem
poral courts should cease their hostility to it, give up prohibitions
and other writs by which they blocked its procedure, and admit
those courts to a position of practical as well as legal equality. In
1607, he published the famous Interpreter, a little dictionary of
political terms in which he sought to set before the English read
ing pubjic such definitions of the various ordinary phrases then in
use, as would in his opinion more nearly accord with precedent and
history than did the views which were espoused both by the Puri
tans and by the common lawyers.

It now remained to show that, because of this great similarity
between the common and civil law treatment of various subjects,
the elevation of the ecclesiastical law and its courts to equality
would involve no sweeping changes ; but would, at the most, demand
only a little forbearance on each side, and the concession of some
technicalities in the granting of prohibitions. The task of develop
ing the ecclesiastical offer of compromise was entrusted to Sir
Thomas Ridley, another of those civilians who were probably
responsible for the drafting of the Canons of 1604. He published,
in 1607, a View of the Civile and Ecclesiasticall Law, which shows
a thorough grasp of the situation and much learning.

Shortly before, the Bishop of Chichester had published, in 1606,
a tract upon Tithes examined and proved to be due to the Clergie
by a divine right, which contained much solid learning, of which
Selden afterwards made good use. What Carleton meant by
divine right was, after all, nothing more than biblical sanction,
coupled to the consent of the early Christian Church. The sixteenth
century and the Jacobean prelates did not mean by that much
misunderstood phrase, that tithes or episcopacy were created by a
special volition on the part of the Deity; but merely that their

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

institution must possess the divine approbation, inasmuch as it was
found to be authorised by Scripture. Two tracts, written by two
converted Puritans, were directed against the Puritan ideals, —
Thomas Sparke's Brotherly Persuasion to Unity and Uniformity in
Judgment and Practice, (1607) and George Downame's Sermon
defending the honourable function of Bishops. (1608) The
former of these was intended to demonstrate the advisability and
harmlessness of subscription and conformity to all the ceremonies
and observances urged by the Canons of 1604 ; while the latter was
a temperate and learned exposition of the basis for Episcopacy, as
found in the writers of Christian antiquity.

Thus was the ecclesiastical contention made strong on paper. It
now remained to be seen whether it could be supported in debate,
for the number of prohibitions had gradually increased, and their
interference had become so much more marked, that Bancroft really
believed that they would bring the whole administration of the
Church to a standstill. In other directions, too, the judges had been
seeking to extend their jurisdiction. The Council in the Marches of
Wales, and the Council of the North, the Court of Requests, the
Court of Admiralty, and the Marshalsea, had all felt the pressure
of the common law through these same prohibitions, and had all
complained to the King. James was wroth, but finally came to
the conclusion that he must renounce his hunting and appear in
London, to settle the dispute in person. In February, and in June,
1608, therefore, the judges were summoned before the Privy Coun
cil to answer for their obstruction of administration in Wales and
in the North;1 and in November, the debates began upon the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

The opening debate upon ecclesiastical matters2 had been set for
Sunday, November 6, and on that day accordingly judges and
bishops met, by the King's command, in the Council Chamber at

iLansdowne MSS., 160, f. 431. Paris and Oxford; had been a judge
2 The chief authority for these de- of Admiralty ; of Bequests ; of Chan-
bates is the holograph notes of Sir eery; and had also been a Bencher
Julius Caesar, taken in the council of the Inner Temple and twice its
chamber while the speeches were de- treasurer; but was, in 1608, Under
livered. These have been preserved Treasurer of the Exchequer. He had
in Lansdowne MSS. 160, and are now thus been connected with both parties,
fully utilised for the first time. We understood thoroughly both views ot
could hardly have found a more im- the controversy, but was at the mo-
partial and able note taker. Caesar ment connected with neither,
had taken degrees in civil law at

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STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

Whitehall.1 Neither, however, were ready to argue their conten
tions; and James remarked that either the High Commission's
Patent was too long or the judges were much too busy to read it ;
and therefore bade them attend again on November 13, when he
hoped that they would both be better prepared. To that end, he
desired them to communicate to each other their respective briefs,
so that they might be ready to rebut the charges against them, as
well as to make accusations themselves. He evidently expected to
dispose of the whole difficulty in one long Sunday forenoon's debate.
Having thus instructed them as to their duties, he added, as was
his habit, a maxim: — all the Courts, he said, were under one God,
one King, and one Country; and, therefore, he had an excellent
expectation of them all. Before the ecclesiastics could depart, Coke,
the Chief Justice of Common Pleas, broke out into a long tirade,
stating that the High Commissioners never paid into the Exchequer
any of the fines levied by that court, but appropriated them to their
own use.2 Bancroft lost no time in denying the charge, and the
two waxed so warm over the difference of opinion that James
interrupted, warning them ' ' to take heede of heate in this business, ' '
for he intended to observe those who disobeyed his wishes, and
would call them to account for it. With this premonition of things
to come, the churchmen filed out and the judges remained to
answer the complaints of the Lord President of the Council in the
Marches of Wales.

The following Sunday, November 13, found the same assemblage
gathered at Whitehall, with James in the chair, and the bishops
and judges standing respectfully before him.3 Caesar recorded, with

1 Lansdowne MSS. 160, f . 428. 3 The authorities for this account

2 Bancroft was right. In the Ex- are: Caesar's Notes in Lansdowne
chequer Documents, Q. R. Eccles. MSS. 160, f. 424-423; John Hercy to
Bundle 12, will be found the original the Earl of Shrewsbury in E. Lodge,
certificates made to the Exchequer by Illustrations, III, 248; Sir Rafe Bos-
the Clerk of the Commission for the well to Dr. Milborne, in Hatfield MSS.
year 1592. There are a large number 125, f. 36; Coke's account in XII
of such certificates in other bundles Reports, 65; and a French MS. copy
for varying dates from 1590 to 1640, of the Reports, which differs some-
but there seem to be none preserved what from the printed version, Lans-
for the period before 1590. Possibly downe MSS. 601, f. 109, and another
Coke pursued his researches only in copy in Harleian MSS. 4615, f. 16.
the earlier years. It is strange, how- These have been printed and dis-
ever, that he could have been Attor- cussed by the present writer in the
ney General for so many years and English Historical Review, October,
have displayed from time to time 1903. The principal results are: (1)
such ignorance of simple facts of ec- that the date of the meeting was
«lesiastical procedure. November 13, 1608, and not Novem-

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

his usual fidelity, that the King opened the meeting and said that
he had come neither to hear nor to make orations, but intended to
conclude the troubles between the two jurisdictions. "Now," he
continued, "to the prohibitions against the ecclesiastical courts;"
where the issue was, whether a case concerning tithes should be
removed to the temporal court because the defendant alleged a
commutation.1 Coke, as the spokesman for the common law, gave
first, an exposition of the statutes of Edward II, Edward III, and
Edward VI, and maintained that in stating that such cases of
tithes were to be tried at ecclesiastical law, the statutes had not
intended to take from the common law its exclusive jurisdiction
over all matters temporal. He also laid particular stress upon the
non obstante clause of the statute of Edward VI, which did, in
truth, declare that the act gave the ecclesiastical courts no author
ity to hold plea of anything which the common law courts should
of right and custom decide. Having thus laid down his premise, he
deduced from it the "facts", that so long as no temporal matter
became involved, the ecclesiastical courts had undoubted authority
to proceed; but that, as soon as a matter of temporal cognisance
became incident, even in a case which itself was clearly of ecclesias
tical tenor, the whole question must be transferred to the common
law courts and there decided. That the civil lawyers explained the
law differently, he was well aware; but the law of the realm was
the law, and it was the duty of the judges of the common law to
expound it; and their interpretations must be received in prefer
ence to any reading adduced by men who, however learned in

ber 8 or 10, 1607; (2) that the ac- Articuli Cleri, has usually been cited

count given by Coke, with its fa- as evidence of that contention. This

mous sentence from Bracton, is very idea was current gossip at this time,

likely a confused recollection of sev- for Bancroft himself, a little later,

eral of these debates fused into one, speaks of it in his letter to the Ci-

together with a long list of precedents vilians, January 23, 1608-9, and denies

concerning the King's right to try it, probably with truth. The account

cases in person, or arrest a man, in the text is an attempt to combine

which he drew up afterward, in or- the most trustworthy of our material

der to leave posterity a justification in a connected narrative,
of hie attitude; (3) that none of l For a discussion of this debate,

the other authorities mention Ban- see The Case of Modus Decimandi,

croft as concerned at all. He was Mich. 6, Jac. 1, in the Common Pleas,

very likely present, but there is no XIII. Reports, 12, which, if the date

evidence but Coke's to prove that he is right, was decided before or imme-

told James he might decide all cases diately after this debate,
in person, although Article I, of the

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STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

other subjects, were certainly not qualified to pronounce upon its
intricacies.

With his usual quickness in dialectical matters, James perceived
the logical consequences of Coke's argument. If these incident
matters be tried at common law, he exclaimed, no case of tithes
would ever be decided in the ecclesiastical courts. The judges were
like the Papists, he thought ; the Papists quoted the Scriptures, but
wished their own interpretation of them to be accepted without
question : the judges cited statutes to support their views and then
reserved to themselves not only the execution of them, but insisted
that only their elucidation of the meaning could possibly be correct.
Nothing was more false, he continued, for the King was the supreme
judge and under him were all the courts ; and there was nothing to
prevent his sitting on the bench himself, if he should choose, which,
however, he would not elect to do. But his prerogative of calling
disputes between the two jurisdictions before him, as the supreme
head of justice, he would defend till death. Nevertheless, he would
protect the common law. ''The comon lawe protecteth the King,"
interposed Coke, with great dignity and solemnity, and needs
from him neither grace nor favour. That is a " traiterous speech, ' '
shouted James in great anger, "the King protecteth the law and
not the law the King. The King maketh judges and Bishops, ' ' and
can therefore control them. "If the judges will interprete the
lawes themselves and suffer none else to interprete, they may easily
make of the lawes shipmen 's hose. ' ' He denounced Coke excitedly
and fiercely, with very likely a vivid memory of the day when, on
a similar occasion (in Scotland, ten years earlier) Andrew Melvill
had seized him by the sleeve, and, shaking him in no gentle manner,
berated him as "God's silly vassal," and put forth such a claim
to freedom from control as Coke had advanced. At length, James
fairly rose from his seat, and shook his fist in Coke's face, appar
ently threatening to strike him. The Lord Chief Justice, frightened
by this display of anger, "fell flat on all fower" and fairly
grovelled before the King, beseeching pardon if his zeal had carried
him beyond his duty and allegiance. This appeased the offended
monarch not one whit; and thereupon Salisbury, who was related
to Coke by marriage, knelt before the King and begged him to
pardon such presumption. "And what hast them to doe to intreate
for him?" demanded James roughly. "In regard that he hath

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

married my nearest kinswoman, ' ' replied the Lord Treasurer. The
mediator was powerful enough to effect his purpose, and gradually
pacified the monarch, who said, before he left the room, that he
would not alter his former promise to maintain the common law.
He then adjourned the further discussion of these topics until the
Christmas holidays.

The fears of Sir Edward Coke being quieted, his resolution was
correspondingly strengthened, and on the very next day he issued
a prohibition to the High Commission which capped the climax of
his aggressions. The case was clearly ecclesiastical, for the man
who asked for the writ, was a minister who had been deprived for
simony and gross ignorance. The reasons assigned by Coke for
blocking the procedure of the High Commission, were, however,
that the High Commission had, under the statute of Elizabeth,
power merely to reform errors and heresies ; and that no misde
meanours, which were not really serious offences (offensa gravia),
were within its jurisdiction; next he quoted the famous clause
from Magna Carta that no freeman should be imprisoned except
by the law of the land ; and lastly that by the pardon of 1572, the
minister's offences were condoned.1 Whatever the law of the matter
was, could it not be fairly claimed that simony and gross ignorance,
were, in a clergyman, * ' errors ' ' of the first magnitude ? Were they
not serious offences from an administrative point of view? And
was a man to be excused for offences committed in the year 1608
by a general pardon of the year 1572?

In this, and in succeeding prohibitions, the case of the common
law against the High Commission was at length firmly set forth.
Until Fuller, in 1607, had asked for a writ of Habeas Corpus on the
ground that the High Commission, as established by the Letters
Patent of 1605, was not warranted by the statute of Elizabeth, no
such argument had, to our knowledge, been offered in any court.
The idea had been hinted at in two tracts printed in 1590 and
1591 ;2 but had never made any progress until Fuller developed it
in his famous speeches and still more notable tract. The three
lines of attack which were now developed by the judges in their
prohibitions, like all the points upon which Coke had granted his
prohibition, were valid only on the assumption that the Commission

1 Stowe MSS. 424, f . 158. gatherer, and perhaps in the peti-

2 The Treatisour and the Note- tions of some few individuals.

216

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

was, in its very institution, illegal. First came Fuller's contention,
that the High Commission might not, under the statute of Eliza
beth, legally fine or imprison any subject — a claim which concerned
purely and simply the methods which the Commission had adopted
in executing its decrees in those cases where no legal doubt could
be cast upon its jurisdiction. It opened no question of jurisdiction,
no question of the competency of the Commission to try a case.
The second point, which now appeared for the first time, declared
that the Commission might try "heresies, errors, schisms, abuses,
offences, contempts, and enormities whatsoever" only when each of
these crimes named was of ' ' enormous ' ' degree ; or, in more modern
phraseology, of an extreme degree. Here, too, appeared no slur
upon the validity of the Letters Patent, for the argument merely
asked whether or not those very Letters Patent had not limited
the Commission solely to cases of a serious nature, and had not
given it the position of a court for greater cases than the ordinary
ecclesiastical courts might try, rather than that of a tribunal with
a jurisdiction co-ordinate with that of all the ecclesiastical courts
from the archdeacon's to the Court of Arches. Lastly, came the
complaint that the Commission dealt with many cases such as
tithes, legacies, matrimony, adultery, and the like, over which the
statute of Elizabeth gave them no jurisdiction. The first objection
had attacked only the methods which the Commission employed to
execute its sentences; the second questioned only the degree of
those cases over which the Commission certainly had jurisdiction :
neither declared it illegal or threw doubt upon its institution. The
last complaint, however, declared that cases, which were explicitly
included within the phraseology of the Letters Patent, but not
expressly mentioned in the statute of 1 Elizabeth, were outside its
jurisdiction, because the statute and not the Letters Patent was
the true measure of its competency. To admit this contention was
to grant that the Letters Patent issued for sixty years had been, for
the most part, entirely illegal, and to argue that the King did not
possess the residual judicial authority and could form no new court
except by consent of Parliament.

As usual, however, the legal view was the least important, for
what the judges really had in mind was the ruining of the Commis
sion as an instrument of ordinary ecclesiastical administration.
"To admit such broad powers in that court," said the judges very

217

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

significantly in Roper's case, "should be to dissolve the court of
the Ordinary, which is so ancient and inevitably necessary in many
cases to the administration of justice in divers points of it, that
without this, justice cannot be executed. ' ' l The High Commission
was taking upon itself the burden of the ecclesiastical administra
tion and robbing the ordinary episcopal authorities of their ancient
power; and, inasmuch as they could not help themselves, the
common law and the judges thereof should champion their case.
The judges were to see, not only that the ecclesiastical courts did
not encroach upon the common law, but also that they did not
absorb each other's jurisdiction.

The action of the judges effectually roused the civilians prac
ticing in the ecclesiastical courts, and, in November or December,
1608, they presented the King with a long petition about their
troubles, and induced both Universities to follow their example.2
In their own appeal, they enlarged upon the universal verdict of
European nations that the civil law was most necessary; that in
England it was accepted and used not only in the ecclesiastical
courts, but in the Admiralty, the Chancery, the Court of Requests,
and the Court of Wards. To discourage so generally accepted and
so necessary an institution was inexpedient; but it was far worse
to countenance these prohibitions which threatened to destroy it
altogether, and to prevent any more men entering upon its study
as a profession. James received all these documents graciously and
once more ordered the judges to cease their opposition. The results,
however, not being very evident, the judges and doctors of the civil
law sought the Archbishop with a long letter, dated January 22,
1608-9,3 couched in much the same strain as their petition to the
King. They complained chiefly fo a "newe kinde of prohibition"
which forbade the Judge of the Arches in London to call before
him any man resident in any other diocese on the ground that it
was forbidden by a statute of Henry VIII.4

1 XII Reports, 45 at 47, 5 Jac. Other copies: Harleian MSS. 358, f.

2 Harleian MSS. 827, f. 1 a, un- .184. Rawlinson MSS. B, 202, f. 107b.
dated. A reference to such a peti- * The statute of 23 Henry VIII c.
tion and to the petitions of the 9 did provide that none should be
Universities in Bancroft's letter to cited out of their dioceses by "any
the Civilians of January 23, 1608-9 Ordinary (i. e. Bishop), Archdeacon,
enables us to date it approximately. Commissary, Official or any other

s Cotton MSS. Cleopatra F, I, f. judge spiritual," except in certain
107, copy. The original was signed cases, which then were enumerated in
by 'fourteen of the chief civilians. sufficient number to cover nearly

218

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

This appeal was thoroughly a work of supererogation, for, though
Bancroft had kept himself in the background, like a good general,
he had been industriously exerting all his private influence with
the King and the judges, as well as directing the open onslaught
upon the common law position. It is not unlikely that this letter
was written to give the Archbishop an opportunity to reply to
various charges, freely made against him, in a form which could
be circulated privately, and which would refute the better than
a public declaration proceeding from Lambeth Palace. Bancroft
said that he wondered what they expected him to do that he was
not already labouring to accomplish with all his might. He hinted
that the common lawyers assumed, as did the Pope, that they
possessed the quintessence of all wisdom and understanding; and
acted "as if they had power to judge all men, but must be judged
of none. " "Do not be too prodigal and lavish, ' ' he went on, ' ' in
using this letter of mine, lest I be maligned afresh. Rumor already
has it, that by my meanes a course is entered into which tendeth
to the overthrowe of the Common Lawe and to depriue his Majesties
subjects of their Birthright; that I labour by all the waies I cann
devise to make the King believe that he is one absolute Monarch
and maie iure Regio doe what he list ; and that I am an Enimie to
all the Professors of the Common Lawe; And all the said imputa
tions are cast uppon mee, (as god knoweth very unjustlie) and for
noe other cause but for that I desire that his Majesties temporall
Judges might keepe themselves in some reasonable sorte within
ther own lists and not invade as they do, his Majesties Ecclesiastical
Jurisdiccon. . . . They affect to much to be popular which was
neuer approved in anye Commonwealth by menn of solide and
grounded iudgement, nor is perhaps tollerable in this. Doth he
whoe saieth that the Kinge with the advice of his most honourable
privie Counsell assisted likewise by other the Cheifest learned menn
of this kingdome in both his Lawes, is the fittest iudge to decide
and determine the questions now risen betwixt both his supreme
lurisdictions : doth he (I say) affirme that the King maie doe what
he list, or doth it followe that if the Kinge shall take uppon him
to be a Iudge in these Causes, it is not unlike that he will hold the

every possible contingency, with an and the High Commission were, by
almost complete reservation of the any reasonable reading of the Act,
archiepiscopal power. The Arches exempted from its provisions.

219

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

like Course in all other Causes, to the preiudice of his temporall
ludges, who pretend for sooth in effect that they are the Ephori
betwixt the Kinge and his subiectes, and that therfore they his said
subiectes are thereby depriued of ther Birthright : It is giuen out
howe earnest the Comons of the Realme haue bin in divers parlia
ments ; that ther Causes might not be decided by the Kinge, and his
Counsell, but should be left to his temporall Judges : But who
knoweth not the imperfections which haue ever generally attended
the Lower Howse who doe for the most part more affect ther owne
designes than the benefitt of the Comons that chose them; Gentle
men and Justices of the peace knowinge ther owne strength in the
County with Jurymen (whoe in manie Causes must depend uppoii
them) wer ever unwilling to come before the Kinge and his Counsell
wher they knowe noe packinge would serue ther turne : wheras the
poore Comons who are often tymes oppressed by such menn, wer
ever most desirous to flee to the Kinge, as being persuaded that
they should receaue from him better iustice then from all his
temporall ludges : And in the present case touching the Marches
of Wales are they not the busier sort of Gentlemen that oppose
themselves against that iurisdiccon as being loth to be curbed by
it: whereas might they bee left to ther Juries before the Judges
they would be able to shift better for themselves. . . . Soe that
the partiall humors of other men ought not to be asscribed unto
the Comons, who doe expect ther birthright from the King beinge
pater patrium rather than from his iudges, what being compared
unto his Majestic are but their stepfathers: He is the fountain
of all iustice, from whence who so immediately draweth is sure
to receaue the same with all clernes and purity . . . did the
Comons knowe howe in the practice of lawe they are used they
would not be soe farr in loue with the temporall Judges as they
the said Judges would pretend they are and as indeed they ought
to be wer they better used by them. . . . Whereupon I maie con
clude that wer the Judges soe carefull that the poore Comons might
haue ther birthright : they would not verbally seek to bring other
men in hatred, but reallie and in deed be more respectiue of
them."1

Encouraged by the favourable reception accorded to these peti-

i Cotton MSS. Cleopatra F., II, f. 121. January 23, 1608-9, printed
in Strype, Whitgift, III, 385.

220

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

tions, forty-four officials and procurators of the Court of Arches
presented Bancroft with two more lists of grievances, asking relief
for "this declininge Jurisdiction in soe dangerous and violent oppo
sition." They mentioned that the "multitude of prohibitions"
had been especially great since Bancroft's accession to the See of
Canterbury.1 However, as the Archbishop said, the civilians and
ecclesiastics had no need to beg him to remember them ; and very
likely these petitions were, as had been the case with the Puritan
petitions, campaign documents rather than the expression of per
sonal suffering, drawn up to impress the King and perhaps the
common law judges, with the number and worth of the men who
espoused the cause of the Church.

Meanwhile, there had been much turning of precedents at the
Tower, where the records of the Courts and of Parliament were
stored in cellars and garrets under the nominal care of a paid
official, called the Keeper of the Records. To him, Bancroft wrote
both in November, 1608, and in March, 1609, requesting him to
allow men to conduct researches and copy documents.2 On Febru
ary 4, 1608-9, the Lord Chancellor sent post haste an order from
the King to one of the Tower officials to send immediately to the
Archbishop, a copy of a certain document in which Henry VI
was said to have settled with the clergy what their jurisdiction
was to be, and in which some three score classes of suits were
enumerated.3 In order to make sure that every scrap of confirma
tory evidence in existence would be forthcoming, letters were sent
from Lambeth to the various bishops ordering them to search
among their records for precedents, * ' concerninge prohibitions, how
and in what cases they should be granted or the maintenance of
the Jurisdiction and liberties of the Church."4 Coke,5 on behalf
of the judges, and Bacon 6 and Salisbury 7 on behalf of the King,
were also pouring over the musty piles of parchment. All this
diligence betokened two things: first, that all parties were now

1 Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F., II, prohibitions from 22 Elizabeth to
f. 320, no date. James I, with some statements about

2 Petyt MSS. 538, 17, f. 281 and .-jurisdiction is in Cambridge Univer-
f. 271. sity MSS. Mm. VI. 57, f. 11-14, but

3 Ibid. 538. 17, f . 279. adds nothing new to our information.
* Letter from Bancroft to Bishop 5 Petyt MSS. 538. 17, f. 270 (De-

of Norwich. Cambridge University cember).

MSS. Dd. 3. 64. f. 68. February 16, e Ibid. 538. 17, f. 279, bis.

1608-9, Original, signed, much faded. 1 Ibid. 538. 17, f. 275, (August).
The original return, signed, including

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

convinced that the dispute concerned not the simple rectifying of
a few technical abuses in the issuing of prohibitions, but the real
basis of the jurisdictional authority of both systems of courts ; and,
secondly, that the day of complaints was passed, and with it had
gone the time when assertion and denial had seemed adequate.
Every one must now be prepared to demonstrate the truth of his
conclusions by an appeal to history.

Furthermore, Bancroft had completely shifted his ground.
When he drew up the Articuli Cleri in 1605, he thought that every
thing might be settled quickly and easily; and that an appeal to
justice and equity would be productive of some compromise as to
the technical difficulties which were then ostensibly the only points
at issue. Experience, however, had soon demonstrated to him, that
the judges were resolved to maintain their whole position, abuses
and all: that it was futile to meet such arguments with a simple
plea of expediency, for they waived that aspect of the question
aside, with the remark that the law was a matter of fact, not a
question of expediency to be changed and altered as a tailor
cut his cloth, to suit the whims of individuals. Thus forced to
change his ground, the Archbishop lost his best argument, that
prohibitions, as then practiced by the common law courts, were
an unqualified abuse of a valid legal authority. He was also
deprived, by the change of the issue, of the natural sympathy which
he could have counted to enlist on his side. Furthermore, while the
judges had been the real aggressors and still were the attacking
party, Coke's excellent generalship had shifted the burden of proof
from his own shoulders to those of Bancroft; and had made the
latter actually appear to be the assailant. Coke had been called on
to defend his conduct, and had replied in substance that his prac
tices were justified by the law. If, therefore, the Archbishop meant
to continue the conflict, he must assume the role of plaintiff and
attempt to prove, by precedents and an appeal to legal history, that
the judges were wrong. By this clever maneuvering, the judges
forced the Church to state its whole case before they themselves
did more than insist, in general terms, that they had been within
their rights, or talk broadly and vaguely about precedents and
statutes. In the plan, there was, however, nothing essentially new,
for it was only the application of the rule of law that the plaintiff
must make out a prima facie case before the defendant is endan-

222

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

gered. Coke treated the appeal of Bancroft to the King as if it
had been the filing of a declaration in his own court, and, when
the Archbishop had proved abuses against him, insisted that he
should also demonstrate that the thing abused was in itself illegal;
that, where Bancroft had simply alleged that Coke used his legal
authority wrongly, he should also prove that he had a right to
certain jurisdiction of his own, which had caused the granting of
the writs complained of as stretches of the powers of the common
law. Coke refused, in short, to meet the Archbishop upon the
question of abuses; and insisted that the only issue concerned the
legality of the clergy's own jurisdiction. It was indeed perfectly
true, that the latter point was still unsettled, but that had not been
the issue which Bancroft had raised. The result, of course, was to
make Bancroft seem in the wrong where he had really been in the
right, If Coke had the law on his side, certainly Bancroft had
equity upon his: and with him, too, was the necessity of the
Church, which could not admit the claims of the common law and
preserve a semblance of administrative coherence and vigour.

In May, an attempt was made to compromise all these differences,
legal and otherwise, by an amicable conference between Fleming,
the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, attended by one of his
colleagues ; Coke, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, attended
by one of his fellow judges; and Ellesmere, the Lord Chancellor.1
They met at York House, on May 13 and the latter handed to the
rest of them a list of the points on which so much controversy had
taken place, and asked them to state their views privately to him.
After deliberating for a week or so, among themselves, they met
him again on Sunday, May 20, and read a reply,2 drawn up perhaps
by Coke. Less was apparently said about law than about expe
diency, for, when Coke tried to change the issue, Ellesmere
reminded him that all his precedents were neither here nor there.
The Archbishop had not complained that the common law courts
could not issue prohibitions in proper cases, but that the judges
had issued hundreds upon which they had themselves been com
pelled to grant consultations, a fact which demonstrated clearly

1 Holograph notes by Coke of these judges would have answered without
conferences are in FTolkham MSS., private consultation together. The
677, f. 252, f. 252 b, now used for the habit of the time was to hold such
first time. conferences on Sunday, so that, May

2 The second paper is not dated, 20, a week later, seems a probable
but it seems hardly likely that the date.

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

enough, from their own mouths, that the prohibitions had been
improper. This Coke did not attempt to deny, but said that
technical flaws in the prohibition might account for many of the
consultations ; and, at any rate, the modus decimandi was a custom,
and concerned nearly every parish in the kingdom and * ' an infinite
number of subiectes," and so, ought to be tried at common law.
Ellesmere at once retorted that the number of persons affected made
no difference one way or the other, for Coke himself had made
the issue the rule of law, and not the question of expediency.
Taking advantage of the fact that many of the prohibitions were
brought by the clergy themselves, Coke then argued, that, unless
the common law contention had been both right and equitable, so
many of the Archbishop's own supporters would not recognise it.
The usual technical points were discussed without result, until
Ellesmere brought into prominence one which had hitherto
slumbered: the judges must not prohibit the ecclesiastical suit,
unless one of the parties was at that moment actually suing at their
own bar. This would have been a great limitation, for a prohibi
tion did not transfer the case to the temporal court, and most
suitors did not seek any such result, but merely wished to stop the
proceedings at ecclesiastical law indefinitely and have no further
trial of the case at all. Coke at once bristled with suspicion and
retorted that if any error had been committed by the courts, it
could be corrected "in a superior Court of record and not in any
other place whatsoever." Full precedent existed for all the judges7
actions. Let them be seen then, retorted the Lord Chancellor, with
a plain hint that he much doubted whether or not they would
bear much scrutiny. In all good time, replied Coke with dignity,
they would be produced in proper judicial investigations and "not
before any other out of the right course of the Lawe, for none can
iudge of them but the iudges." "But what, said the Lord Chan
cellor, yf the Kinge shall commande to see your Booke Cases and
presidents, to whom I sayde, I praye your Lordship, let me
aunswere your lordship with another question. To what end should
his Majesty see our Book Cases and presidents? His Lordship
said, to reade and consider of them. Oh, my Lord (said I) your
Lordship in your wisdom knowes what would follow of that. ' ' 1

i This seems to mean : how could ing to understand them, and no right
the King's reading of the precedents to make a decision as to their con-
settle the case, for he has no learn- tents, if he did. But, if he should

224

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

The debate then turned to the High Commission, where E lies-
mere received little satisfaction. The judges still called for specific
instances of the prohibitions complained of; and said that, until
they had in their hands the very words objected to, they could not
defend themselves. From his wide reading, Coke was able to
produce a case or two on the newer objections raised ; and cited for
one, Atmer's case, where it was said the Commission could not
punish a man for working on a holiday. Whereupon, Ellesmere
remarked, with ill-concealed scorn, that "it was a pretty case,"
and proceeded to quote other precedents out of his own memory
to support the right of the Commission to impose fine and imprison
ment. The conference bore little fruit, and was only a continuation
of the earlier phase which was now passing.

The continued aggressions of the judges in granting such
extreme prohibitions, and the failure of the Lord Chancellor
to convert them to his view of the question, brought the
contending parties once more before the King. James had
much confidence in his own learning, and especially in his forensic
powers; and thought he would be able to argue the obstinate
lawyers into acquiescence in his position. He reckoned without his
host. Nevertheless, the gathering which assembled at Whitehall
on May 24, 1609, was imposing enough to have shaken the resolu
tion of a strong man.1 James sat as usual in the chair of state,
with the Council on one side of him, and the bishops, headed by
Bancroft, on the other. In front of them stood the two Chief
Justices, Coke and Fleming, with two of their associates; and, a
little at one side, were several of the ecclesiastical judges and civil
ians, whom Bancroft had long been preparing to plead in behalf of
the Church. The King first expounded well the ideas which had
gained such an ascendency over his mind: his determination to
allow no innovation in the realm ; his desire to be impartial and to
give each court the exact jurisdiction to which custom and law

read them and try to enforce his deci- lay too much stress on his own part,

sion, that day would mark the down- and too little on any one else's; but

fall of judicial independence. Caesar's notes are so meagre that we

1 Our accounts of this debate are must perforce use Coke. The Chief

fragmentary: Caesar was tired of Justice w7as undoubtedly a truthful

writing out precedents and took only man; but his prepossessions and pre-

the heads of the arguments. Coke's .indices were so strong that he was

account in XIII Reports, 37-47, re- simply incapable of understanding

lates very clearly only to the first the position of the churchmen or of

day 's session, and seems, as usual, to doing them justice.

225

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

entitled it; and his intention that none of them should encroach
upon the other. As the head of justice immediately under God,
and as protector of the rights of his people, his duty required him
to put an end to this harmful clash of jurisdictions. The chief
difficulty was, he continued, a perfectly practical question : if a
parson sued his parishioner in the ecclesiastical court for tithes
and the latter alleged a modus decimandi, in which court should
that case be tried — the ecclesiastical or the temporal? He com
manded the judges to justify their position. Bancroft, however,
knew well that nothing could result from such a demand but a
repetition of the statements which would allege much and explain
little. Coke had turned the tables upon him, and if a speedy settle
ment was desired, there was nothing to do but accept the situation.
He therefore asked leave to speak first on behalf of the Church.
He brought into prominence the argument from expediency : that
a jury trial was not a proper method of deciding tithe cases,
because no twelve men could be found in a parish who were really
impartial, and, indeed, who were not themselves as vitally affected
as the defendant. In many cases, the modus decimandi in question
was a uniform rate for the whole parish, and the delivery of such
a case to a jury for decision was nothing less than allowing them
to adjudicate their own suit. If no such difficulty appeared, and
the custom concerned but one man, experience showed that laymen
were chary of giving a verdict in favour of the vicar, partly on
account of general prejudice and partly because they were afraid
that their verdict might some day be a precedent which would
militate against them. The Archbishop laid great stress upon the
well-known fact that juries were often corrupt and said that he
could not agree to deliver the question which concerned the whole
future of the Church to a dozen ignorant and possibly venal men.1
Dr. Bennet, the Judge of the Prerogative Court, followed him

i Fulbecke, a common lawyer, in sinnes, ... if any prohibition con-

his Conference of Laws, puts these cerning Tythes come to be tried by

words into the mouth of the Parson them, ar as sure to passe against the

in his dialogue : ' * We parsons, ' ' Parson, as an old chimney is sure

said he, ''have much impediment by of blacknes — But let any matter

Prohibitions, and many times wrong, come to be tried touching common,

when they come to triall; for the which concerneth themselves and their

countrie people which are the lurors, owne profit, they will as surelie go

who have no more desire to paie their with the comoner as the cloudes goe

Tythes then the Diuel hath to love with the northeast wind. ' '
his entercourse with seauen deadly

226

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

with a long speech against the granting of any prohibitions at all.
He took up Cowell's and Ridley's contention, and said that, since
the two jurisdictions were united in his Majesty, the old power
ought to be abolished which had been readily countenanced in the
common law courts as long as they needed to defend themselves
from the Papacy. If trouble came, let the judges take their
grievance to the King and rest assured that his energy and dis
cretion would restore to them their rights. Turning to the question
of fact, he declared that there could be no doubt but that the
ecclesiastical courts ought to decide the general status of tithes,
where the issue was whether they were due or not from a particular
individual. No one could deny that all these other points were
incidental parts of that one main issue; and therefore, he con
cluded, let the court, which indisputably ought to try the main
issue, try all its adjuncts and incidents. He warmly denied the
judges' oft-reiterated charge that the ecclesiastical courts would
not receive a plea of modus decimandi. He declared that they
always allowed a suitor to make the plea, but required him to prove
it before they accepted it ; and that he could see neither equity nor
justice in crediting a bare statement which was so palpably to the
interest of the man who made it.1 Coke said, in his account, that
he omitted much of Rennet's speech, because it was "impertinent."
After Dr. Bennet spoke Francis Bacon, "and," remarks Coke, "in
effect said less than Dr. Bennet said before. ' '

Thus assailed, Coke shifted his ground, and in his reply
attempted to make clear the new footing upon which he wished to
place the whole argument. The civil lawyers had steadily con
sidered it an open question, upon which no irrevocable decision
had as yet been made, and where, by mutual forbearance, some
workable compromise might be arranged. The Chief Justice now
stated that the issue had been entirely misapprehended. It was
not a matter "in statu deliberative), but in statu judiciali," and
was not in the least "to frame or devise new laws, but to inform
your Majesty what your law of England is." There was in reality,
he went on, no difficulty not already settled by the law clearly

i See the Articuli Cleri, art. xv, modern student, the ecclesiastical

which declared the suggestion to be courts had behind them not only

' ' notoriously false. ' ' Nearly all the equity, but also the great bulk of

tracts of the time take the same posi- the common law precedent,
tion. Tt must be confessed that, to a

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

and properly, so as to fit all circumstances and heal all contentions,
provided only the decision might be found and accepted. The
judges had laboured hard, had turned many times the pages of
their books of precedents, and had at last found the remedy which
would infallibly produce peace and harmony. They were unani
mously agreed, said he, that the trial de modo decimandi ought to
be by the common law, by a jury of twelve men; and in affirma
tion of that decision he would be able to cite the common law, the
statutes, and "infinite judgments and judicial proceedings long
times past, without any impeachment or interruption." Here was
indeed a change in the situation! What purpose was there in all
these debates, if the solution not only existed, but had already been
found !

The debate which followed ranged over a variety of subjects, that
were successively treated in much the same way, until the dis
putants came to prohibitions and technicalities, and there tarried.
Every question taken up was of long standing, and was not brought
by the debate any nearer settlement. Despite the fact that it was
fully four years since the Articuli Cleri had been issued, and no
less than ten years since the bishops broached their complaints in
1598, (during all which time the discussion had been seriously
maintained) the debates had not yet drawn away from those
elementary matters which had developed from the real divergencies
which lay deeper in the intricacies of the problem. Even after
debates in November and a conference in May, and a great study of
the records, the argument still ranged a wide field, where techni
calities and precedents with varied solutions and refutations were
still numerous, and were pursued apparently as ends in themselves.
Nor had the element of personal recrimination been as yet exorcised.
Every one thought that his own arguments were so convincing, and
so unanswerable, that he could not fail, if he could once be heard.
The researches of the Archbishop and of the Chief Justice had
rendered each confident that this time he could crush his adversary
upon technical points alone. Of course, the real issue was, as to
whose interpretation was to be authoritative ; who was to prevail
among the interpreters? This, however, was a constitutional issue
of the first magnitude ; and contained wrapped up in one phrase, —
the relation of the church courts to the common law courts; the
definition of the royal prerogative, and the attitude of the judges

228

STRUGGLE WITH THE COMMON LAW, 1608

toward it ; the legal status of a statute ; the position and authority
of Parliament; and much more which was not directly and
specifically considered until the Parliamentary struggles of
the reign of Charles I.

James grew tired of the wrangling and the repetition of so much
which had already been said, and declared that Coke had not as
yet satisfied him. He would maintain the common law, he added,
and would give its judges as much respect and honour as any of
their predecessors had had; but he wished them to confer again
with each other, and to keep within their own limits, ''without
vexation and molestation done to his subjects and without delay or
hindering of justice." He concluded that "he saw much endeauor
to draw water to theyr seuerall mills, and therefore aduised them
to think among themselves of some moderate course wherin the
goode of the subject might be more respected then theyr particu
lar iurisdictions. ' ' 1 And so the debate was postponed till after
Trinity Term.

i Carleton to Edmonds, Stowe MSS., 171, f. 183 holograph.

229

CHAPTER X

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

The effect of all this argument over the validity of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, soon became apparent by the small amount made of
its process and procedure by various individuals of more than
dubious character. A week or so after the debate just recorded,
a case occurred which brought this fact home to Bancroft in a
most forcible manner. News having been brought to him that a
certain Christopher Eoper was concealing Jesuits at his house just
outside London, the Archbishop judged it expedient, for one reason
or another, to arrest them. With the pursuivants of the Commis
sion he sent the constables of the district, so that Roper could not
object that there was not authority enough before him. Roper,
nevertheless, refused to admit the officers; but sent his wife to in
terview them, so that he might swear, (if by chance he afterward
fell into the hands of the Archbishop) that he had never refused
to admit them. His lady demanded a warrant under the seals of
six of the Privy Council; and when the pursuivant answered that
his warrant was from the Archbishop and three High Commission
ers, "shee flurted at it," wrote the angry prelate to Salisbury.
However, she informed the messenger that he might come in if he
would not search certain rooms, which the owner of the house,
Lord Howard, from whom they leased it, had reserved for his own
use. So transparent a ruse deceived no one; and the pursuivant,
leaving the constable and his fellows on guard, posted back to
London for instructions. Bancroft then penned a letter to Roper,
saying "that he should be better aduised and suffer the search;"
and letters to the justices of the peace and constables of the district
commanding them to guard the house until further notice; and
with these sent the officer back. Then he sent a messenger to Salis
bury and begged him either to tell the King of the matter or to
send him a warrant under the seals of six of the Council, for search
the house he would. "Your Lordship may preceaue by the premises

230

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

of what estimation his Majesty's sayd Commission (through the in
solent contempt thereof by some and the audacious and factious
disposition of others) is growne to be: which is a high degree to
ward the neglect of greate authoritie." Here, at the interesting
point, we lose the thread of the story and its conclusion.1 In all
this, the Archbishop saw Coke 's influence ; and he found additional
traces of the same spirit among the other judges, for, during the
summer assizes of 1609, Justice Warburton released a Catholic who
had been imprisoned by the High Commission, on the ground that
the Commission could not fine and imprison.2

James had thoroughly approved the main contentions of the
Church in the debates, but he was far from satisfied with the legal
showing made by the Archbishop and his advocates. Believing that
the crown lawyers could do better, he ordered Hobart and Bacon
to prepare briefs for the new debates which were appointed for
the Trinity Term. After an interval of a little more than a month,
the contestants again assembled on July 6, 1609, at Whitehall.3
Coke took the floor and made some considerable concessions in re
gard to the issuing of prohibitions, which, had they been made
in 1605 or 1608, might have settled the dispute for the time being
and have avoided the issue which the judges had forced. That
the latter should have made any offers at all shows how serious
they now believed the matter was. Coke's first statement, however,
was no concession : they would grant prohibitions, he declared,
only "in such cases when they may doe it by the law, by the
statutes, and by the custome time out of memory of men, videl. by
judgments at comon lawe confirmed." That answer was too gen
eral, interrupted the King; they ought to specify exactly their
rights, and above all ought not to be judges in their own case.

They would grant no prohibitions, continued Coke, except in
open court; they would insist upon an examination of the truth
of the suggestion and require proof of it by two witnesses; they
would summon the party whose suit was to be prohibited and hear
his arguments. They would see to it that no such writ con
tained more than the suggestion presented by the suitor; they
would even go so far as to force the party seeking the prohibition
to give bond for the charges which his opponent might incur in se-

i Bancroft to Salisbury, June 7, 2 Lambeth MSS. 933, f. 25.

1609. Hatfield MSS. 127, f. 67. Orig- s Caesar's notes in Lansdowne MSS.

inal, signed. 160 f. 416-415.

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

curing a consultation. They would shorten the length of the writs
issued; would prosecute the cases speedily; and, if the defendant
was poor, provide counsel for him at their own expense. If these
offers had been effectively carried out, most of the technical griev
ances would have been rectified.1 That they were not accepted
as satisfactory is the best possible indication of the distance which
now separated the parties, of the greatness of their mutual dis
trust, and of their consciousness that more than a mere technicality
was at stake. Of course, the only guarantee that these reforms
would be made or would be permanent, was the word of the judges.
In their good intentions Bancroft and James had little confidence.

That was all very well, said the King, but it was not to the point.
The question was not how they might best reform their practice
to decency and order, "or to open a fair gate for those suits,"
through which they could be regularly drawn before the common
law courts for adjudication; but whether the common law should
decide questions of modus decimandi at all.

Coke was somewhat taken aback; and, divining that the cause
of opposition lay in their doubts of his sincerity, spoke of his good
faith, of his search for the truth, and of the necessity of his obey
ing the oath he had taken as Chief Justice to preserve the law of
the land. But he maintained his ' ' former opinion that modus deci
mandi is merely belonging to the cognizance of the temporal judges,
by a continual possession euer since the law of 2 Edward VI, by
eighty learned Judges at the least." Read the statute, he begged
them, and examine carefully its wording. Clearly, he said, a piece
of land must not pay double tithes; if it is to pay by a modus
decimandi in money, it cannot also pay in kind. The modus deci
mandi is a custom, and "customes are parcell of the lawe of Eng
land," as was declared by the statute of 19 Edward III. The
common law may therefore try the case, and therefore may issue
a prohibition to prevent its trial at ecclesiastical law.

Not so, retorted James. The statutes were made to facilitate
the proper payment of tithes and not to enable men to evade them ;
to allow the ecclesiastical courts to try suits brought for tithes, and
not to take away from that jurisdiction all cases of tithes, whether
brought by clergy or laity. No act should be so construed as to de-

i Some of them at least seem to and susceptible of two interpretations,
have been carried out in later years, that no more definite statement can
but the evidence is so fragmentary, be made.

232

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

feat its object; and the common law interpretation, and the un
limited number of prohibitions issued under specious pleas, tended,
in some parts of England, to stop the payment of tithes altogether.
He quoted many statutes in support of his contention. After some
further debate between Coke and Ellesmere, the sitting adjourned.
On the morrow,1 Bacon argued at great length that the Common
Pleas could not issue original writs, and, hence, could not grant
a prohibition to the ecclesiastical courts, unless the same case was
also being heard at its own bar.2 Bancroft had already raised the
point in the Articuli Cleri ; and if it could be maintained, it would
go far toward stopping the deluge of prohibitions from the Com
mon Pleas, most of which were issued when a case was not im-
pleaded at common law. Coke replied with an equally long array
of precedents, and both he and Bacon asserted that their own list
was not once crossed or contradicted; Bacon declaring that his
contention was demonstrated, not only by the books of the Chancery
but out of the mouths of the judges of the Common Pleas them
selves.3 In rebuttal he said the disagreement of precedents was
nothing extraordinary, for in Edward VI, the judges had disal
lowed lists of them and in the eighth year of Elizabeth nearly a
hundred had been rejected at once. The King said, in conclusion,
that the Lord Chancellor's books were far preferable to the Lord

1 July 7, 1609. Caesar 's notes in time. Mr. Spedding was able to find
Lansdowne MSS. 160 f. 414-413. We but little about Bacon's doings in
also have the speeches in full. Caes- 1608 and 1609, but we can now make
ar 's notes and the ' ' Preface ' ' to good the deficiency.
Coke's Answers has made it possible 2 "A Breuiar of the selected
to date and arrange a great mass of proof es: prohibitions out of the Corn-
papers, and to ascertain definitely mon Pleas noe Recorde being before
their authorship. These it is believed them. ' ' Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F,
have now been utilised for the first T, f. 215; Tanner MSS. 120, f. 25;
time; and have also been shown for Petyt MSS. 511. 16, f. 228; and
the first time to be the work of Coke, 538. 55, f. 5 b; Rawlinson MSS. B.
Bacon, and Hobart. In most of the 20, f. 224 and B, 157, 18 b, and C,
MSS. repositories, the numerous 731, f. 48.

copies of these speeches now in exis- 3 Indeed a clear precedent, which
and dated, and such varied authors no quibble could explain, took exact
assigned, that an attempt has been ly Bacon 's position. Brook's Abridge-
made to collect a bibliography of the ment, (1573), f. 165 a, No. 6, a case
copies of these speeches now in exis- of 38 Henry VI. This is rather dam-
tence. None of them have been aging to Coke's asseverations that his
printed, although the substance of view was "not once crossed or con-
Coke's replies can be traced in the tradicted. " It was Coke's weakest
II, III, and IV Institutes at various point that he steadfastly refused t6
places. The important speeches by recognise the plain fact that the corn-
Bacon and his connection with these mon law decisions had been far from
debates is now shown for t~he first uniform or unanimous.

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Coke's precedents, and quoted Justice Yelverton as stating, in
Fuller's case, that the Common Pleas might issue no prohibitions
except when the case depended before them. There the debate
was adjourned for the day.

When it was resumed the next morning, on July 8, the King
commanded Sir Francis Bacon to deliver the opinion which he had
required him to prepare upon the subject of treble damages for
tithes.1 This dispute had arisen over the interpretation of a clause
in the statute of 2 and 3 Edward VI. For the fault of not separa
ting the tithes the statute imposed a penalty of double their value,
payable to the man to whom the tithes were due ; and expressly or
dered him to sue for this double value at ecclesiastical law. For car
rying away the tithes, which he had separated, the Act gave, logi
cally enough, a greater penalty than it had bestowed for the failure
to separate — that is, treble instead of double value; but with the
singular want of precision so often found in early English statutes,
had omitted to name the party to receive this triple value or the court
where he could recover it. Coke, seizing upon the omission, had
argued with plausibility in sustaining his prohibitions, that, where-
ever in a statute no mention was made of the court where the
suit should be brought, the case must be tried at common law.
In this interpretation lurked great possibilities. By its aid, the
Chief Justice was able to declare that the parson might recover
double value for his lost tithes at ecclesiastical law and treble value
at common law. Nor could it long be doubtful which side the
clergyman's poverty would teach him to espouse.

Therefore, when Bacon rose to combat this position, more rested
upon his argument than the demonstration of a small legal techni
cality. He said that it was clear that when a statute gave a new
penalty for an offence of a nature not regularly impleaded at law
in a particular court then no doubt the statute must be in
terpreted to mean that the trial should be at common law. Here,
however the offence in question was old and had been of eccle
siastical cognisance for centuries; further proof, then, than an in
ference from an omission must be demanded before such suits
could be heard out of the regular course. This proof was not forth
coming, and a careful reading of this Act and others made it per-

i " A Breuiate of the selected proof es MSS. 538. 55, f. 2 b. and 511. 16, f.
touchinge the Keeouerie of the treble 161. Rawlinson MSS. B, 157, f. 12,
value in the spiritual! Courtes. " Petyt and B, 202, f. 161, and C, 731, f. 56.

234

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

fectly clear, he thought, that the intention of Parliament was the
exact opposite. By this Act, that of 32 Henry VIII was con
firmed in entirety, which expressly gave cognisance of all such
cases without exception to the ecclesiastical court. Secondly, a
succeeding clause of this very statute of Edward VI forbade bring
ing suit for such a detention of tithes before any but the eccle
siastical judges. Nor was there any inconsistency in awarding a
penalty of double value of the tithes which the layman had failed
to separate, and one of treble value for those which he carried
away. From the uniform practice of sixty years in the ecclesiasti
cal courts came added confirmation; and, by the confession of the
judges themselves, no such contention as they now espoused had
been heard of until thirty-five years after the passage of the Act.
With this argument, logical, coherent, and abounding in pre
cedents and cogent evidence, the King was delighted ; and, turning
to Coke, remarked, that he wished from him "a sincere and plaine
signification of the truth without substraction or addition;" and
that, when he excused his want of preparation on the day previous
he had declared himself ready to argue this topic.1 Coke replied
authoritatively but succinctly that the proper interpretation of
that clause required the vicar to sue at common law, if he wished
to recover the treble value of his tithes, for at ecclesiastical law
he might regain but double their value. James was vastly piqued,
and made no pretense of concealment, for he evidently thought
that he had Coke at last in a dilemma from which he could not
extricate himself. It was ' * against the rule of all reason and law, ' '
he declared in his oracular way, "that any Court of England or
elsewhere should preiudicate truth by iudging in a cause of ques
tion of lurisdiction between that Court and Others." This ple
thora of precedents, that poured like a river from the mouth of the
Lord Chief Justice, seemed to him of small worth. "Not a mul
titude of allegations but the soundness of some few must prevail. ' '
He was sorry indeed that Coke was so ill-disposed to place con
fidence in the impartiality of his sovereign for the settlement of
this difficulty. He need not fear: a King might be trusted to
speak the truth. As for the Lord Chief Justice's denial of his
right to decide the question, that was another matter; and there
his Lordship was flagrantly in the wrong: he might sit as King

1 Here Caasar's Notes again become our authority. Lansdowne MSS. 160

f. 405-408.

235

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

''in every court, in common pleas as well as in King's Bench."
Taking their cue from the King, the ecclesiastics began to accuse
the judges of issuing more prohibitions since the debates of the
previous November than in all the years that had preceded. The
judges, caught a little off their guard and somewhat surprised,
answered with less than their usual assurance; but especially de
fended the prohibition which forbade any ecclesiastical judge at
London to cite a man out of his diocese. In reply they were told
that the statute of Henry VIII to which they referred1 concerned
only the bishops; that the Archbishop was metropolitan of his
whole province and was not affected by that statute at all. The
Common Pleas and the Lord Coke, interposed James, sought to
be interpreter of both God and men, of laws of both human and di
vine, of laws civil and canon and of all other laws whatsoever.

When the assembly came to order again, after the royal joke,
they listened to Hobart, the Attorney General, argue on behalf
of the High Commission.2 He showed that to admit the truth of
the first two of the judges' contentions would completely nullify
the Commission's powers. Even if the statute of Henry VIII,
which forbade citing a man out of his diocese, applied to the Arch
bishop as metropolitan, it certainly could not apply to the High
Commission simply because the Archbishop was a member. At
any rate, if the High Commission might not summon men from
all parts of England, its power was gone. Similarly, if the Com
mission was limited to those cases with which the individual bishop
might not deal, "it will follow that it must meddle with none at
all, for there is noe case ecclesiastical in effect from the highest to
the lowest over which the ordinary (i. e. the Bishop) hath not
jurisdiction." The rest of the judges' objections, continued Ho
bart, depended solely upon the construction of the Act of 1 Eliza
beth c. 1. Their Lordships had taken it upon them to deliver opin
ions that the Commission might try only criminal cases ; and those
only when of the most serious nature; and that it possessed no
authority to use fine and imprisonment as penalties. The basis of
their contention was that the Commission could not exceed the
provisions of the statute which gave it birth, and that, in the clause

1 23 Henry VIII c. 9. torney Generall, ' ' delivered July, 1609.

2 < ' The grounds of Prohibieons to Stowe MSS. 420, f . 18. Cotton MSS.
the hi^h Commission and the Answers Cleopatra, F, T, f. 128, Petyt MBS.
unto them, by Sir Henry Hobart, At- 511. 16, f. 117 and 518, f. 86.

236

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

of that statute which sanctioned the Commission, none of these
powers were specifically enumerated. From this statement inevi
tably followed the conclusion, said the Attorney General, that all
the Letters Patent hitherto issued for sixty years, three of which
had been drawn by the Lord Coke himself, were illegal.

But the truth of the matter was, he showed, that the statute did
not sanction a Commission to use the powers enumerated in the Act,
but ' ' to exercise, use and execute all the premisses according to the
tenor and effect of the said Letters Patents : any matter or cause
to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. ' ' The Commission was
to find the definition of its powers not in the Act, but in the Let
ters Patent. And, even if the judges' arguments were granted,
that the Letters Patent were limited by the Act, where could be
more general and inclusive phrases found than these: "to visit, re
form, redress, order, correct, and amend, all such heresies, errors,
schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities whatsoever,
which by any manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authority,
or jurisdiction, can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered," etc.1
Was there here any limitation of the court to cases which the
bishop might not hear, or to criminal cases only, or to enormous
and serious crimes 1 The King broke in with a pun : ' ' The Common
pleas," said he, "have granted enormous and expensive prohibi
tions." The argument that the Commission might not employ
fine and imprisonment, continued Hobart, was based upon the fact
that the statute of 1 Elizabeth c. 1. had restored to the Crown the
ancient jurisdiction ecclesiastical. Under the old law, the judges
had claimed that whatever were the powers of the King, the bishops
had not had power to fine and imprison ; and, therefore, could not
possess it as High Commissioners under a new Act which, confes
sedly, only reinstated the old jurisdiction. The Act did not give
them new powers, but merely confirmed the old ; and the mere fact
that they were now High Commissioners did not allow them to do
things which, as bishops, they could not do. But, objected Hobart,
how can this be true, for "where the statute saies that they shall
execute the premisses by virtue of this act according to their com
mission any matter or clause to the contrary notwithstanding, can
there be a more expresse contradiction to the statute then to saie
they shall not execute but by the former lawe ? ' '
i 1 Elizabeth c. 3. s. viii.
237

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Coke was taken by surprise, and to that indefatigable note-taker
Caesar, seemed ''somewhat inclinable to allow of all that," but he
requested time to answer in writing. To prove the care with which
the Commission was administered, the Bishop of London remarked
that no case was considered by that court until it had been scruti
nised by the Archbishop 's chief judges. The King was triumphant,
Bancroft complacent, Bacon and Hobart elated, and the judges
somewhat crestfallen. In the full flush of anticipated victory, the
onslaught was continued by Hobart with a speech upon the sole
right of the judges to interpret the statutes of the realm.1

This was by far the most important point of all the issues and
upon it rested the validity of nearly all the other arguments, for
the cases of the High Commission, of the modus decimandi, and of
the treble value depended almost entirely upon the interpretation
of a statute or statutes. Here, at last, the contestants were ap
proaching the real constitutional issue : who was to prevail among
the interpreters? Were the common law judges to have the sole
right to expound any and every statute of the realm, whatever its
subject matter might be; and was this prerogative of theirs so firm
ly established by custom and law, that the King's residual right of
judgment had merged with it, precluding his personal exercise of
it any longer ? Such was the real question which neither Coke nor
Hobart phrased exactly, but which may be easily traced in their
utterances. From the claim of the judges that they alone could
interpret statutes, declared Hobart, flowed various "inconve
niences. ' ' Cases, which a statute had been expressly passed to give
to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, were prohibited on the ground
that the common law judges alone could construe that statute. How
ever indirectly a statute might come under consideration, its ex
istence became at once a pretext for a claim that the whole ques
tion ought to be tried at common law. Wherever, too, a statute
had allotted to a purely spiritual offence a temporal penalty, to
be executed by the Chancery and sheriff, the existence of that pro
vision was used as an excuse to insist that the nature of the offence,
although admittedly ecclesiastical, must be decided by the com
mon law. In his opinion, said the Attorney General, the statute,

i < « Prohibicions grounded upon the Stowe MSS. 420, f . 24 b. Cotton MSS.
posicon that the interpretacon of stat- Cleopatra, F, I, f. 132 b. Petyt MSS.
ntes belonge to the judges of the tern- 158, f. 90 b. and 511. 16, f. 140, and
poral Cortes." (by Henry Hobart.) 538. f. 1.

238

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

once passed by Parliament, to modify or amend some part of the
ecclesiastical law, became as much a part of the King's ecclesias
tical law as if it had been enacted by Convocation and was to be
interpreted solely by the ecclesiastical courts. If the statutes con
cerning temporal questions were to be interpreted by the common
law judges, on the ground that they alone possessed the requisite
learning to comprehend them, pari passu, the statutes concerning
spiritual things should be construed by the ecclesiastical judges.
Let each system of courts hold plea of all matters under all the
statutes which concerned those subjects over which it had pecu
liar jurisdiction.

Salisbury, the Lord Treasurer, approved this position. Those
who must execute a statute should interpret it. He thought the
action of the common law judges had had serious results by free
ing the guilty from the consequences of their crimes, besides the
dire effect of robbing the Treasury of the fines they would other
wise have paid. Let the judges stick to the common law and
statute law, but let them not ask to expound all statutes "bycause
some of them concerne other learninge whereof they cannot
judge." To turn the debate from these dangerous subjects, Coke
began again the offers with which he had commenced two days
earlier, to grant no prohibitions except on proof of the surmise.
As for these precedents of Hobart's the exchequer cases "in mat
ters of the increase of their own jurisdiction" were not to be treat
ed as "infallible troths," though they were otherwise deserving
of every credit. When he came to consider the increase of his
own jurisdiction as judge of the Common Pleas, however, he was
ready enough to insist that only the records of the Common Pleas
were of any value. No one, however, seems to have thus answered
him. Instead several at once retorted that there was plenty of
other precedent to maintain their conclusions.1 Sutcoth, one of

1 At some time during these days' XIII; Lansdowne MSS. 211, f. 148-
debates, an argument was delivered 236; Tanner MSS. 120, f. 141; liar-
entitled "The Arguments contra for leian MSS. 4892, No. 2; Petyt MSS.
the Archbishop of Canterbury. That 518, f. 51 ; Cotton MSS. Faustina,
the King hath power in his owne D, VI, f. 93; and Cleopatra, F, II
person to heare and determine all f. 287; Hargrave MSS. 278, f. 726-
kinds of Causes, when it shall please 780 and 493, f. 272-383; Eawlinson
his Majesty as appeareth by these MSS. B, 202, f. 193 b, and C, 738,
reasons following. ' ' Additional MSS. f. 107. This may have been written
25270, f. 29; Exeter College, Oxon. by Cowell or Eidley or by Bancroft
MSS. 154, f. 71; Eoyal MSS. 18, B, himself.

239

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

the judges of the King's Bench thirty-five years before, and Popham,
the Chief Justice only just demised, had both sued in the eccle
siastical courts for the recovery of tithes under these Acts of Ed
ward VI, and it might be presumed that men of such acknowledged
legal standing would not have adopted that method of litigation,
if they had believed such suits could rightly be impleaded at com
mon law.

Tired of the five or six hours' wrangling and orating, the King
rose to end the debate. The modus decimandi was a subject large
of extent, he said, and concerned the undoing of the clergy on the
one hand, and the prejudicing of the laymen in their trial on the
other. He would not now decide the matter.1 As for the three
statutes of tithes, they neither helped nor hurt his position ; and
for the present therefore he commanded the judges to execute the
Lord Coke's offer and issue no more prohibitions without proof of
the surmise. The power of the Common Pleas was uncertain: the
Lord Coke had alleged precedent to support one theory of its in
stitution, while Sir Francis Bacon had upheld the contrary with
an equal volume of precedent. Both could not be right. The
Lord Chancellor should look into the question and report the truth
to him before the Michaelmas Term. The High Commission had
been ''impeached many waies by unfitt and uniust prohibitions,"
for which he wished the Lord Coke to answer in writing before
the next term ; and, in the meantime, to stay all prohibitions to
that court and complain to him, when he found his jurisdiction
infringed. So with the other matters discussed: let all action on
either side cease until he could settle the dispute. He had no in
tention, he went on, of altering any part of the common law, not
withstanding rumours to the contrary. That law consisted, he well
knew, of Magna Carta and other statutes, the customs of the land,
the year books, and the judgments of the judges of the land. Like
wise, he meant to favour the Church, which he would have flourish
as the green bay tree, so long as it grew neither popish nor puri
tan. Neither Church nor common law could stand in safety with-

i Bacon had prepared an elaborate 16, f . 165 ; Cotton MSS. Faustina,

argument on the point which was de- D, VI, f. 48 and Cleopatra, F, T, f.

livered to Coke in writing sometime 185; Hargrave MSS. 278, f. 630 and

in the vacation. See "A Breuiate 493, f. 201; Eawlinson MSS. B, 157,

of the cheife proof es selected touch- f. 1 and B, 202, f. 165 b, and C, 731,

ing the modus decimandi." Tanner f. 63; Harleian MSS. 7161, f. Ill b.
MSS. 280, f. 432; Petyt MSS. 511.

240

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

out the other's aid; and he wished therefore that there might
henceforth be a forbearance of opprobrious speeches and libels,
both spoken and written; and that they would "live together like
brothers without emulation."

The debates were over, and although the question was not defi
nitely decided one way or the other, the Archbishop was, in every
body's eyes, the victor by a considerable margin. It had certainly
been demonstrated to the entire satisfaction of the Privy Council,
who had by no means unanimously favoured the Church, that he
was right on the issue of law as well as upon the question of ex
pediency. Upon the latter was his greatest triumph, for he had
made perfectly apparent to every one the harm the judges were
doing to the Church ; and how effectually they were hindering that
indirect and quiet reform which he had hoped to achieve. There
was no doubt rejoicing at Lambeth and jubilation at Doctors'
Commons, for could there be any doubt as to what the royal decision
would be? But, while the civilians were still exchanging congratu
lations, and while Bancroft was planning a new campaign on the
subject of ecclesiastical incomes for the next Parliament, an angry
but determined man was busily turning the pages of black-letter
law tomes, unrolling plea rolls, and preparing his answer to the
statements of the Archbishop's advocates.

Sometime during the fall of 1609 or spring of 1610, Coke pre
sented to the King five treatises, knit into one, which contained his
reply to the charges against him and his brethren. It was a noble
monument of judicial learning, honesty, and integrity, and dis
played that admirable courage in the maintenance of his convic
tions for which he deserves the unqualified respect of posterity.
In some ways, this was the greatest of all his legal writings, for it
turned probable defeat into virtual victory, and silenced the argu
ments of the Church.1

All five topics, he said, were concerned with "the exposicon of
statutes concerninge Causes ecclesiasticall, viz. whether Acts of
Parliament made by the Kinge, the Lords, and the Commons of the

1 The preface is most valuable for the Lorde Archbishop of Canterbury)

us, because he reviews the history of against Prohibicons. ' ' Cotton MSS.

the controversy and gives us much Cleopatra, F, T, f. 116; Hargrave

information. "A Preface to the MSS. 237, f. 91; Petyt MSS. 511, 16,

Answeres of the Judges of the Courte f. 106 and 538. 55, f. 26; Eawlinson

of Comon Pleas unto the obiections MSS. B, 20, f. 113 b, and C, 731, f. 26.
and Arguments made (on behalf of

241

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Realme concerninge ecclesiasticall matters should be interpreted
by the judges of the Lawes of England or by the ecclesiasticall
judges.1 The true and cleare discussion of this point would end
the whole controuersie. ' ' Full and firm came his decision. * ' Acts
of Parliament made by Kinge, the Lords and Comons, are parte
of the Lawes of England and are to be interpreted by the judges
of the laws of England, and not by any Cannonist or ecclesiastical
judge. And this is expressly proved by many authorities and
judgmentes reported in our bookes of LaVe that no ecclesiasticall
Judge ought or euer pretended to interprete any act of Parliament.
If an act of Parliament do authorize the ecclesiasticall judge that
which before he could not doe, the judges of the Common Lawe
shall judge and determine whether the ecclesiasticall Judge haue
pursued his aucthoritie given by the statute, or by Color of that
statute hath done wrong to any of the Kinges subiectes or no."
"The breach or not performance of that statute is temporall and
is punishable by the temporall lawe and thereupon a prohibition
lieth. And therefore the exposicon of such a statute doeth belong
to the temporall judges. So as if the aucthoritie of our bookes
in all ages, the continuall practice and experience of former tymes
unto this day, a.nd the resolucion of all the Judges of England
may giue satisfaction in a question of Lawe (there being no one
opinion in all our bookes or euer motion before this tyme made to
the contrary) then we hope the Lo: Archbishop (being now truly
informed hereof) will herewith rest satisfied."

In regard to the High Commission, he declared, as had Hobart,
that the whole issue hung upon the rendering of the statute of 1
Elizabeth c. I.2 The first clause was, he said, general, granting

i "The second question propounded 147 b, and C, 731, f. 51; Petyt MSS.

on the behalfe of the Lord Archb: of 511. 16, f. 143 and 518, f. 9 and 538.

Canterbury touchinge the Exposition 55, f. 17. Harleian MSS. 827, f.

of Statutes concerning Ecclesiasticall 28 and 1299, f. 128.

causes ; whether the same belong to 2 ' ' A declaration of the true

the Judges of the Eealme or to th ' in- grounds of Prohibitions to the High

terpretation of the Civilians and Commission and the authority and

Canonists. A question neuer made reasons approving the same with

in any of our bookes, nor moved by Answeres to the observations made to

any in any tyme heretofore. ' ' Tan- the contrarie wherein amongst other

ner MSS. 120, f. 180; Exeter Col- thinges it is mayntayned and proved

lege, Oxon, MSS. 154, f. 79 and 157, that the high Commission may in

f. 9; Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F, I, diuers cases Lawfully fine and ym-

f. 159 and Faustina, D, VI, f. 118; prison and particularly what those

Hargrave MSS. 278, f. 780 and 493, cases be, so as neither of those pro-

f. 313; Kawlinson MSS. B, 202, f. positions be true: The Commission

242

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

them power to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the broad
sense and to act generally in such matters as should be specified
in the following clauses. The second clause contained the particu
lar points of the general authority of the Queen with which Parlia
ment meant to give the Commission power to deal, that is to say,
with all " heresies, errors, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and
enormities whatsoever." The particularly of this clause was a
restraint upon the generality of the former, for the last word
' ' enormities ' ' was meant to describe and expound all those that pre
ceded it, and to give the Commission jurisdiction not of all ''of
fences," for there was indeed nothing which could not be included
under that head, but of the above-specified subjects when of an
"enormous" degree. The Act did not mean to erect a Commis
sion which should supplant the ordinary ecclesiastical authority,
but to give the bishops some extraordinary power for dealing with
the popish priests for whom the censures of the English Church
had no fears. The Letters Patent should include only those powers
enumerated in the Act, for the statute meant not that the Commis
sion should derive its authority from any Letters Patent the Queen
might see fit to issue, but from such Letters Patent as conformed
to the restrictions imposed on the Commission by Parliament. The
Commission, therefore, might fine and imprison only in serious
criminal cases.1

As to the statute of Edward VI upon tithes, Coke declared that
"for the treble value of Prediall tithes not set out or divided ac
cording to the said statute, the partie grieved ought to sue in the
Kinge's Courtes and cannot sue for it in any ecclesiasticall
courte. " - He said it was absurd to suppose that any statute would

cannot fine and ymprison in any case opinions directly contrary in 1577.

or the high Commission may fine and Attorney General to Burghley, Lans-

ymprison in all Causes belonginge to downe MSS. 27, f. 46. Holograph.
Ecclesiasticall Cognizance; compassed 2«The thirde Question that hath

and comitted to writing by the bene made on the behalf of the Lo:

Commandement of his most excellent Archb: of Canterbury is whether if

Majesty and the dispatch thereof tithes in kinde be not divided and set

often urged in his Majesty's name by furth, an action may be brought in

the Late Archbishop of Canterbury." any of the Kings Courts at Westmin-

(1610) Stowe MSS. 420, f. 1; Ad- ster by the partie grieved for treble

ditional MSS. 25270, f. 89; Hargrave damages grounded upon the statute

MSS. 237, f. 100; Rawlinson MSS. of 2 E. 6. Cap. 13." Cotton MSS.

B. 202, f. 133 b. and C, 731, f. 1; Cleopatra, F, I, f. 173 and Faustina

Petyt MSS. 511. 16, f. 123 and 538. D, VI, f. 134; Hargrave MSS. 278,

55, f. 7 and 518 f. 71 b. f. 813 and 493, f. 333; Harleian

iThe twelve judges had expressed MSS. 1299, f. 143; Tanner MSS. 120

243

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

grant a penalty of double or treble value in one and the same case ;
and here he totally ignored the point on which Bacon had laid so
much stress, that the double and treble forfeiture was not pro
vided for the same case. ' ' If any person or vicar, etc., ' ' concluded
Coke from these premises, "will sue for the double value, he may
and ought to sue for the same in the Ecclesiasticall Courte by the
expresse wordes and purvieu of the statute : but if he will sue for
the treble value, he must sue for the same in the Kings Courtes
at Westminster.1 So as seeing this matter to be in statu Judiciali
hath bene so iudicially and so often determined for lawe by all the
judges of the Lawe, we persuade ourselves it will this case giue
satisfaction to the Lord Archbishop himself." Next followed a
very long and bulky defence of the jurisdiction of the Court of
Common Pleas, in the matter of Prohibitions,2 upon which Bacon
had thrust home Bancroft's contentions. The subject was vastly
important to Coke and received his most careful attention, but it
need not detain us.

Last of all, the Chief Justice proceeded to answer the objections
to the common law attitude upon suits de modo decimandi.3

f. 197; Exeter College, Oxon. 154, 545 and 493, f. 133; Rawlinson MSS.

f. 110; Petyt MSS. 511. 16, f. 153 B, 202, f. 227 and C, 731, f. 169.

and 518, f. 15 and 538. 55, f. 34; Tanner MSS. 120, f. 15.
Eawlinson MSS. B, 202, f. 155 b; 3 "An Aunswere to the Chief e

Lansdowne MSS. 161, f. 258. points selected touchinge the modus

1 This position, although technically decimandi, wherein the question is
sustained was afterward tacitly whether upon a suyte in the spiritual
abandoned in the law courts. They courte (for tithes in specie) and a
decided that inasmuch as the suitor prescription of Custome de modo
ought to sue in the ecclesiastical court decimandi pleaded a Prohibicon may
for the recovery of his tithes which be brought in the temporall Courts,
had been detained, and could not or whether the spiritual courte may
have them in the temporal court, he not trie that Issue and so sentence
could receive at common law merely the entire Cause. ' ' Cotton MSS. Cleo-
treble value of the tithes, but could patra, F, I, f. 185 and Faustina, D,
not recover the actual tithes. On the VI, f. 58; Hargrave MSS. 278, f.
other hand, he might sue at eccle- 653 and 493, f. 216; Harleian MSS.
siastical law for the tithes, and re- 1279, f. 55; Eawlinson MSS. B, 202,
cover them plus double tlieir value. f. 172 b and C, 731, f. 73; Petyt
So that the suitor would receive the MSS. 511. 16, f. 174 and 518, f. 37
same in both courts. See II, CroTce, b; Additional MSS. 25270, f. 4;
70; III, Croke, 560; Moore, 873, 915. Tanner MSS. 120, f. 90: Exeter Col-

2 "In what Cases the Kings Court lege MSS. Oxon. 154, f. 132 b. See
of Comon Pleas may graunt Pro- also the Case of Modus Decimandi.
hibicons by Lawe and Many Presi- Michaelmas, 6 Jac. I, 1608, XIII
dents of former tymes and in what Eeports, 12. If the date is right
not." Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F, I, (which is doubtful) this decision
f. 215 and Faustina, D, VI, f. 12; was delivered before or during the
Tanner MSS. 247; Harleian MSS. debates of November, 1608.

1299, f. 1; Hargrave MSS. 278, f.

244

DEBATES UPON LEGAL CONTROVERSIES, JULY, 1609

"Where there is a modus decimandi," said he, "we are of opinion
that the parson, vicar, etc., sueing for tithes in kinde and thereby
seeking to infringe the custome of Modus decimandi claymed by
the parishioners, that this custom ought to be tryed by the Comon
Lawe and not in the Ecclesiasticall Courtes." Here, however, as
in the matter of treble value, he rested his whole case upon the
assumption of the very thing which the civilians so hotly contested.
He premised throughout that the modus decimandi pleaded by the
parishioner was indubitable and of long standing; and that the
parson was unjustifiably trying to break it. He therefore put the
ecclesiasical judges in the wrong, from the start. The latter
however, declared again and again that where the parson was
really seeking to encroach on an established custom, he received
small sympathy, and that they upheld the modus decimandi them
selves. What they insisted upon was that the common law courts
should not censure them for refusing a modus decimandi which the
parishioner could not satisfactorily prove. This much established
to Coke's satisfaction, he next alleged that commutation was paid
in money; that it was therefore custom, hence a temporal matter,
triable solely at common law. The pages of the treatise fairly
bristled with precedents and statutes, which Coke produced from
the stores of a vast erudition.

The immediate and visible results of the controversy were slight :
the judges continued to grant prohibitions, and no royal decree was
issued of any sort. Technically, the questions raised by Bancroft
never were decided; but certainly by common agreement victory
was at the time tacitly acknowledged to rest with Coke and the
common law. Nevertheless, with some exceptions, we find no more
such radical prohibitions put forth as had caused such trouble in
the earlier years of Bancroft's archiepiscopate ; and after Coke
had been removed from the Bench in 1616, the aggressions of the
common law courts against the ecclesiastical courts practically
came to an end, although the judges, even under Charles and Laud,
were ready enough to speak boldly when the occasion seemed to
warrant it. In fact, once their claims had been accepted, the
judges were willing to recognise how serious the literal enforcement
was to the administration of the Church, and in practice ceased in
1610 to issue prohibitions, except in the proper and normal course
which the ecclesiastical courts readily countenanced.

245

CHAPTER XI

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610
AND THE AUGMENTATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL INCOMES

The conflict with the common law was tacitly closed: the Arch
bishop accepted Coke's precedents and maxims, and the Chief
Justice agreed that he would not enforce his legal rights to the
detriment of the Church. The High Commission, therefore, con
tinued till 1640 to fine, imprison, and cite men out of their dioceses ;
on the other hand cases of treble value and of the modus decimandi
were still prohibited when the decision in the ecclesiastical courts
had been neither just nor equitable. The new phase resembled
strongly the early period, 1586-1603, before the strife had become
keen. Scarcely had this danger been warded off, than the Puritans
in the House of Commons delivered another determined assault
upon the Established Church. The Archbishop met them with a
scheme for the increase of ecclesiastical incomes which was even
more detailed and comprehensive than his plan of 1604. Then, at
the critical juncture, when the secular priests needed all possible
liberty to gather signatures to their petition to the Pope for Catho
lic bishops, Parliament renewed its demand for the strict enforce
ment of the penal laws. Last, and by no means least, Episcopacy
in Scotland was established in the form it maintained for twenty-
five years. But Bancroft was undaunted at the difficulties before
him: "I could not but condemn myself, being Archbishop of
Canterbury, if I should not with all my strength and for the
preventinge of future mischiefs stand up in the gap, which is
sought to be made in the very form and frame of the Church.

The Puritan leaders in the House of Commons wasted no time
in opening the battle.2 Their policy and the bills in which it was

iDalrymple's Memorials, I, 23. the report on the Lords' Manu-
2 Detailed references to the Jour- scripts, Hist. MSS. Commissioners Ee-
nals have been given in only a few port, III, a number of bills are re-
cases because it is as easy to trace ferred to which may concern this ses-
a reference by the date as by the sion. It is impossible to arrive at any
page. In the State Papers, and in conclusive decision about their dates.

246

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

comprised had by dint of repetition attained definite form; and,
within a month, they had pushed most of them through the House
with vigour and precision. At the second sitting for business,
February 15, Nicholas Fuller, not one whit abashed or humbled
by his recent imprisonment, appeared with the bills against non-
residence and pluralities; and within a fortnight had the satisfac
tion of seeing them passed by the House and sent to the Lords
with a special commendation. On March 12, he brought in two more
bills, one abolishing the subscription required from ministers, and
the other making illegal the bishops' use of their own seals in
judicial proceedings.1 Both were duly read and committed. Other
time-worn measures again saw the light : the bill to settle a preach
ing minister in all parsonages appropriate ; the bill against scanda
lous ministers; one for the reform of the Prerogative Court; and
the one upon which so much stress had been laid in the preceding
session, the bill for the restraint of canons not confirmed by
Parliament.2

Since 1607, however, the leaders had seen that the condition of
ecclesiastical incomes was a fact which must be recognised; and
that, unless they made some advances in the direction of the
augmentation of tithes, it was idle to expect to win the royal
assent to other measures. The new bill on pluralities, therefore,
contemplated the increase of the value of benefices;3 and, on the
strength of it, the House by another clause forbade pluralities.
Even Bancroft admitted that the House was at last animated by a
sincere desire to make every benefice in England able to provide
adequate support for a learned preacher.4 The difficulty, now as

1 This is a good example of the 6. for the paiement of Tythes. ' ' Seven-
difficulty of dating these bills. The teen pages, dated by the Calendar,
editor "of the Calendar dates this May 18, 1607.

March 26, 1606, (S. P. Dom, Jac, I, * " It is true that now there is a fair

XIX, no. 85.) but another copy in overture, of an earnest, to make every

Lansdowne MSS. 172, f. 246, is dated parsonage and vicarage a competent

in Sir Julius Cassar 's hand, March 9, living for a learned preacher, but the

1609-10. issue thereof I do greatly suspect,

2 See Dalrymple 's Memorials, 247, that it will only tend (through the
for what purports to be a copy of undervaluing of men 's deserts) to
this bill, dated May 12, 1610. It is the tying of particular preachers to
at least a revised copy, if the date one parsonage or vicarage of the
is correct. better sort, and so rather to deprive

3 A paper in S. P. Dom. Jac. I. them all indeed of sufficient living,
XXVII, no. 21, seems to belong here. than to make the lesser benefices able
" Som observacons upon the Statutes to maintain men so qualified, as now
of 27 Hen 8, and 32 H. 8, and 2 E. it is with such earnestness desired."

247

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

ever, was to agree upon the manner by which that most desirable
result should be effected. As might be anticipated, the parties
were widely sundered: Bancroft advocated a return to tithing in
kind, while the House of Commons wished to increase the value of
the poorest vicarages and curacies by diminishing the revenues
of the bishoprics, of the cathedrals, and of the richest rectories.
"They meant to rob Peter to pay Paul," said the clergy bitterly.
In fact, the scheme which found most favour with the laity merely
redistributed the income which the Church already possessed, on
the supposition that some men had too little because others had too
much ; and thus tacitly denied Bancroft 's chief complaint, that the
revenues of the Church as a whole were insufficient, and that the
equal division of the present income would diminish wThat was now
adequate without properly relieving what was inadequate.

While the House and the Archbishop were disagreeing over the
subject of ecclesiastical incomes, the House was censuring the Archi-
episcopal policy upon another point. Cowell's Interpreter, a book
published in 1607 as a part of the literary defence of the Church,
had been read with scorn and rage by the common lawyers and their
friends; and now they found themselves at last in a position
effectively to express their disapproval. It was, said the irate
lawyers, a book written to attack the common law, part of a con
spiracy against the law of the land.1 A committee had been
appointed to read the book and reported that it was "a Book very
unadvised and indiscreet tending to the Disreputation of the
Honour and Power of the Common Laws," but found it extremely
difficult to agree upon any vote of censure which the House would
accept. Finally, the Attorney General was called upon, who sug
gested at a conference of the two Houses, that the definitions given
for the words "parliament," "prerogative," and "subsidy,"
offered the Commons the only legal pretext for proceeding against
the author, inasmuch as they could punish only for contempt or
breach of privilege. The Commons accepted his advice with ill

i Commons Journals, I, 399, 400. sider what is to be done. . . . Mr.

February 23, 24, 1609-10. "Preach- Hoskins. Produceth many other

ing against prohibitions. Books in Treatises containing as much as Dr.

print against the Common Law. Cowell ... Sir Anthony Cope. But

Mr. Martin. Because the Common there are Confederates. Whether

Law vouched false — suppress our lib- from beyond the Sea or here. A mat-

erties — consult with Civilians — with ter of great consequence."
the Council — with the Judges — con-

248

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

grace, for apparently they had set their hearts upon censuring the
views expressed in the book in regard to the common law, which
they felt had been attacked. In the end, Cowell was reprimanded
by the King and his book suppressed by proclamation.1

With the bills on pluralities already sent up to the Lords, with
Cowell censured and his book suppressed, the Commons turned their
attention to the re-drafting of the petitions and grievances which
had already been mooted in earlier sessions. The King was in dire
need of money; his debts were large, and the present receipts did
not meet the current expenditures; so that the Puritans, who held
the balance in the House, confidently expected to buy his consent
to the "reform" of the Church by some concessions on the Great
Contract; and thought that, inasmuch as the latter was already
being discussed, it was high time they came to some conclusion upon
the grievances. On March 22, "upon the King's motion," a com
mittee had been appointed for religious grievances, the members of
it to be "any that will come." After a month of discussion, Sir
Edwin Sandys reported to the House four grievances : the failure
to execute the penal laws against the recusants, the silenced minis
ters, pluralities, and the abuse of excommunication.2 Mr. Brook
voiced the old contention that the ministers had been illegally
deprived because they had been proceeded against under the
Thirty-Sixth Canon, for matters for which they were not liable under
the statute of 13 Elizabeth, c. 12. Sir William Cope declared that,
since the present Book of Common Prayer had not been confirmed
by Parliament as the Book of Edward VI had been in 1559, no
clergyman or layman could be punished for offences against it.
Let us not treat these questions as grievances, interposed Mr. May.
Let us petition, but let us not mention the word grievance. Before
he could carry the point, the debate closed for the day. On the
morrow, Sir Dudley Diggs attempted to take up the issue where
Mr. May had left it; and said that, if the names of the ministers
whom the House wished to relieve could be secured, a petition
in their favour might be offered, without making a general

1 Commons Journals, I, 404, 415. I, 53, no. 123, endorsed ' ' Grievances,
Lansdowne MSS. 513, f. 81-92. The 1609," but there is nothing to show
Printed Proclamation, March 25, which one of the many drafts this is.
1610, original edition, is in the Brit- Dated by the editor* April 25 (?)
ish Museum. which could not by any possibility

2 Commons Journals, April 23, fit the date " 1609 " even if it meant
1610. A copy is in S. P. Dom. Jac. 1609-10.

249

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

grievance of the fact that they had been deprived. He was sup
ported by Sir Richard Spencer, who declared that he saw no reason
' ' but, without offence to God, or to their own consciences, they may
subscribe." For the nonce, the radical leaders were willing to
accept this compromise, and Sir Francis Hastings said that he
favoured the suppression of the word "grievance" and the prepa
ration of an humble petition on all four points. Emboldened by
the turn of the debate, Mr. Carleton begged the House not to teach
his Majesty how to rule nor to count a grievance what was done
according to long-established custom. Nothing could be a griev
ance, he went on, which was grounded upon law, as the King himself
had said three years before ; let us ask for some relief for the
ministers, but let us say no more of their restoration. What is
done, is done; and, above all, let us not question what has been
done legally. To this Sir Herbert Crofts, another radical, assented,
but Henry Yelverton, Bancroft's antagonist at the conference in
1606, reminded the House that the bishops had agreed in 1606 to
reinstate some ministers who had been illegally deprived and that
they had not yet fulfilled their promise. Next day, therefore, the
House proceeded to draw up a petition and not a bill of grievances.
The Great Contract had, in the meantime, been progressing in
long conferences between the Houses and in longer committee
meetings.1 The propositions they were discussing contemplated a
permanent grant to the King in exchange for the burdensome
feudal dues, such as purveyance and wardship, which not only
caused unnecessary hardship to the subject, but failed to provide
enough revenue to meet the ordinary expenditures of government.
The same economic events, which had depleted ecclesiastical in
comes, had so reduced the royal receipts that the exchequer was
nearly empty the greater part of the time. Bancroft had been the
chairman of the Lords' Committee and had spent a great deal of
time and thought over the solution of the issue. By May 5, how
ever, it became pretty clear that unless the King gave way to the
Commons, nothing but failure could result. The House was eager
to commute the old dues into a yearly payment derived from some
different tax, but was unwilling to make the sum large enough to
ensure the King an income which would meet even his present

i The best account of the debates edited by Dr. Gardiner for the Cam-
on it is in the Debates of 1610 den Society.

250

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

needs. So, at the conference of the two Houses early in May,
Bancroft delivered as it were a funeral sermon over the project.1
He was sorry, he said that the contract had not been carried, for
"the King's necessity had been notably, plainly delivered."
Apparently the Commons thought that, in the midst of a flourish
ing and populous realm, the King ought to lack food for his table,
unless he could provide it himself from his own resources, — an
attitude which was equivalent to nothing more nor less than letting
him shift for himself. He took it to be a postulate of speculative
divinity, however, that the Kingdom must support the King. The
arguments to the contrary sounded well, but would prove on inves
tigation to be of no value.

The arrival of the news on May 8, that Henry IV of France had
been assassinated by a fanatic instigated by the Jesuits, was the
signal for an anti-catholic demonstration in Parliament and in
England generally. The Gunpowder Plot, the complicity of Garnet
and various rumours and reports in 1608 and 16092 of attempts
to murder James, now became doubly suggestive and inspired a
terror such as had not been felt for years. A bill on the oath of
allegiance, whose scope is unknown,3 although it was in all likeli
hood directed against the failure of the bishops to administer the
oath strictly, had just been read a first time, but was abandoned as
too mild for the new crisis. On May 18, William Bulstrode aston
ished the House by relating a long tale of priests who held
conferences in prison, of secret masses sung in jail, of the resort of
ladies to the imprisoned priests, and of the great lenity with which
recusants were treated. Feeling ran high in the House, and Dr.
James tried to turn it to account in his defence of the High Com
mission, by pleading that the latter did more service toward
discovering recusants than all the magistrates in the Kingdom.
It helped, however, very little. By May 25, many members had had
opportunity to acquire "information" from the newsmongers and
professional informers who swarmed in London. There were more
recusants now, declared Sir Francis Hastings, than at any time
these seven years ; let us look about us and see what is plainly

1 We know of this speech only from 27, 1610, wrongly catalogued.) Stowe
the report of the committee to the MSS. 171, f. 130, July 25, 1609.
House of Commons, in Commons Jour- Foley, Record, I, 62. July 14, 1606.
nals, May 5. Possibly the speech was 3 Possibly this is the one mentioned
delivered on May 3 or 4. in Hist. MSS. Corn-miss. Reports, III,

2 Lansdowne MSS. 153, f. 71. (May 12, dated May 24, 1610.

'251

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

apparent to every one with eyes. One hundred recusants were
indicted at the last sessions, said the Recorder of London ; English
gentlemen were reduced to recusancy; masses at the ambassadors'
houses were daily thronged with gentlemen and ladies. A petition
was agreed upon at once; and was soon drafted, adopted, and
despatched to the Lords, who, not less prompt, assented to it next
day and saw it on its way to the King.1

The result appeared in the shape of a proclamation issued June
2, 1610,2 ordering all recusants to depart from London or any other
place which was not their usual residence; and to remain, on and
after June 30, within five miles of their homes, as was by law
prescribed. The justices of the peace were strictly enjoined to
disarm all Catholics; Jesuits and seminary priests were to quit
the realm before July 4; and the oath of allegiance was to be
tendered to all who were by law required to take it. These provi
sions were clear enough, but they were almost contradicted by the
mild and conciliatory tone of the proclamation as a whole, which
recognised that the laws had not been enforced because of the
King's desire to press no loyal subject in matters of conscience;3
and stated that even now it was not his intention to enforce them
to the uttermost but merely to see that ''greater care shall be used
thereafter in the general administration of this oath. ' ' On June 14,
appeared a commission directed to Bancroft and others for the
banishing of Jesuits and seminary priests.*

It was the spirit rather than the letter of the proclamation which
was obeyed. No secular priests or Jesuits of prominence left the
realm ; and the former proceeded, albeit somewhat less openly than
usual, to collect signatures to their petition to the Pope, and the
latter continued to foment the feeling against it during these very
months — June, July, and August, — when the execution of the law
was supposed to be most rigorous. Some of the less important

1 Possibly this is the paper in Ad- 3 ' ' We have ever been so loath to
ditional MSS. 34218. f. 10 b. "For shed blood in any case that might
the safety of his Majesties person have any relation to concience
and the better observacon of the (though but of a deceived and dis-
Lawes in force the comons thinke fitt guised conscience) yet hath our
to expound these things privately to said natural clemency ever witholden
be considered of." The provisions us from putting the law to that due
of the later proclamation were very execution against popish priests and
similar to those of this document, ex- recusants which their evil deserts . . .
cept for the mild and clement tone. did justly deserve at our hands. ' '

2 Printed in Tierney, IV, clxxxiv, * Patent Roll, 8 Jac. T, part. 12.
and elsewhere.

252

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

men were no doubt banished, and others threatened; and the
correspondence of the priests with one another1 leaves little reason
to doubt that the surveillance over them was stricter than for some
years. They found it difficult to meet for their conferences, hard
to communicate with each other, dangerous to be in possession of
the ceremonial robes and altar accessories needed for the perform
ance of mass; and necessary even to remain indoors part of the
time. But, according to Mush, no general attempt was made to
enforce the proclamation until the fall of 1610 ;2 and this coincides
with our knowledge of Bancroft's theory, that it was wise to give
the Catholics several months to adjust themselves mentally to the
conditions and to make up their minds thoroughly as to the attitude
they would take. Nevertheless, in some parts of the country, the
law was certainly executed at once and caused suffering in indi
vidual cases ; and the search for recusants in London was probably
thorough-going ;3 but the Catholic distress which we find so vividly
depicted in many of the letters and reports proves, on close inspec
tion, to be only quakings and apprehensions of what might happen
if the law should be enforced.4

The Archpriest and his friends had no doubts as to what the
object of this new severity was and as to what its results would be.
"This new oath is so pressed by the King," wrote Birkhead on
July 2, 1610, "that it causeth many to stagger; yea, even such of
the laity as much disliked it before ; now they would take it with a
limitation or protestation. . . . Outwardly, as yet, we (i. e. the
seculars) are in good peace both with ourselves and our other
friends (i. e. the Jesuits). I fear the diversity of opinions about
this matter may breed some quarrel amongst us ... A great
number are already banished and many more like to be. Others
not yet apprehended are driven to keep close."5 During July a
scheme was hatched and widely approved, of securing from the
Pope a breve which should forbid all Catholics whatsoever, under
the severest spiritual penalties, to do any of the things which the
oath of allegiance required them to disavow.6 This they hoped

i Printed in Tierney, IV, and V. like terror and frights as then and

"About Michaelmas, 1610." are now." Tierney, IV, clxxvii. See

Tierney, TV, clxxvii. also Venetian Calendar, XT, nos. 821,

sFoley, Records, VII, Part II, 880, 918, 955; Foley, Records, VTI,

1019-1020. August 30, 1610. Part IT, p. 1009-1011, 1015-1022.

4 "In truth, writes Mush in An- s Tierney, IV, clxv. cf. clxiii.

gust, 1611, "Catholics were never in <* Ibid. IV, clxvii.

253

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

that the Government would accept as an earnest of Catholic loyalty ;
and that the Catholics themselves would consider as a definite
permission from the Pope to take the oath. Although the scheme
fell through, the Catholics in general took the oath, despite their
spiritual confessors' objections; and in order to save their estates
went further than even the seculars approved. "In this matter
of the oath," wrote Birkhead in March, 1611, "all is like to run on
wheels; every man inclined to take it in their own sense, when it
is offered, rather than to hazard their estate. I write abroad, I
exhort, I admonish, but all will not serve. ' ' x

Meanwhile, the anti-Catholic sentiment continued its radical mani
festations. During the month of June both Houses solemnly took
the oath of allegiance. Stories of scandalous doings by the Cath
olics were related in the House by Sir William Bulstrode. Ladies
supped at night with their father confessors in the Gatehouse jail;
the pursuivants who captured a priest released him for a sum of
money ; the vestments and altar ornaments seized were sold instead
of being destroyed and the money kept by the ecclesiastical
officials.2 Sir Francis Hastings roundly declared that the trouble
lay in the connivance at recusancy by the officials who ought to
enforce the law and in the corrupt practices of their subordinates.
Then, Bulstrode came into relation with William Udall, a profes
sional informer, who had been in Bancroft's service until he
outlived his usefulness by selling information to both sides at once,
and by insisting upon exorbitant remuneration. So incredible were
his tales3 that a committee of the House examined him, but failed
to get anything out of him beyond a reiteration of his stories and
wordy promises of his ability to prove all if it was only made worth
his while. The fruit of this examining, orating, and discussing was
contained in an Act (7 and 8 Jac. I. c. vi.) which repeated the
provisions of the Act of 1606 regarding the oath of allegiance, and
also enacted more stringent regulations in regard to married women
recusants, especially those whose husbands were Protestants. If
statutes, proclamations, and inflammatory speeches could have
extinguished Roman Catholicism in England, there would not have

1 Tierney, IV, clxv, note. was in 1610. Tierney, IV, clviii.

2 There may have been more than a 3 The original of one of his papers
grain of truth in this. Birkhead is in Lansdowne MSS. 153, f. 71,
wrote on May 3, 1611, of just such dated by Sir Julius Csesar, May 27,
actions. But the fact that it was 1610.

true in 1611 does not prove that it

254

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

been a single Catholic left upon the island in the year 1610. As
it was, in that very year the secular priests and influential laity
were busily and successfully laying the foundations of a perma
nent organisation of English Catholics.

In the meantime, the bill against pluralities, which the Commons
had sent to the Lords, had been progressing slowly, side by side
with a proposition of Bancroft's for the augmentation of ecclesias
tical incomes, which he intended to attach to the bill as a " rider, ' '
so that pluralities should be abolished only on condition that the
incomes of single benefices should be made adequate. Now, toward
the end of June, as the excitement over the Catholics began to
subside a little, the Lords took the final steps in the preparation of
this plan. A great committee, of which Bancroft was chairman,
had been appointed on April 30, to discuss with the judges the
bill on pluralities sent up by the Lower House. Circumstances
had, however, hindered the progress of the work. First and fore
most stood the rejection by the Commons of the King's final offer
on the Great Contract, and the rapid progress the petition of griev
ances was making in the Lower House, whose acceptance by the
King, it was beginning to be whispered about, was a necessary
prelude to any substantial vote of money. James was financially
so straightened that no doubt his resolution to support Bancroft's
policy in ecclesiastical affairs was somewhat weakened. Bancroft
therefore used some words, which the King let fall in conversation,
as the occasion for a letter to him oh the whole issue.1

The bill against pluralities, he said, was the same which had
been rejected, Parliament after Parliament, for forty years. There
was now indeed, he admitted frankly, "a fair overture of an
earnest desire to make every parsonage and vicarage in England a
competent living for a learned preacher;" and, if that could be
truly achieved, the bill might very well be passed. He was afraid,
however, that the laity would never be satisfied with the size of
their own possessions; and would, furthermore, never cease to
believe that the clergy were too wealthy. Indeed, he was convinced
that the House of Commons contemplated only a redistribution of
the incomes now received by the clergy; meant to add here only
what was subtracted there; and would diminish the funds of the

i This remarkable letter is printed ters. I, 18-23, (Glasgow, 1766). No
in Dalrymple'l Memorials and Let- MSS. copy has as yet been found.

255

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

cathedrals and of the bishops by as much as they increased those of
the parish clergy, so that the result would be ''rather to deprive
them all indeed of sufficient living than to make the lesser benefices
able to maintain men so qualified, as now it is with such earnest
ness desired. But God 's will be done ; we that are bishops will do
our best (as heretofore we have to our powers endeavored) for
the increasing of a learned ministry; but we may never yield to
any course that shall procure apparently their utter overthrow."
While the bill forbade any clergyman to receive the tithes from
two benefices, it allowed laymen to retain the incomes from any
number of impropriations, "so as, for mine own part," declared
the Archbishop, "I hold it a very unequal and scandalous project
. . . considering to whom, by God's ordinance, tithes ought to be
paid." He begged the King to stop the passage of any such bill.
Much pressure would be put on him to consent to measures ' ' against
the clergy by the lower house of parliament, as hoping, now or
never, to obtain that which divers of them for many years had
aimed at, and that your Majesty, for the gaining of your own ends
towards your supply and support, may be inclined to give more
way unto them therein, than, I judge, may stand" with the welfare
of the Church. The right and the wrong of the question, the law
of the land, and the needs of the Church had already been stated to
the Commons many times; "but all is one: reason or no reason, it
forceth not ; it is importunity and opportunity, that is relied upon ;
and we must again endure a new brunt to no purpose except your
Majesty shall be pleased to prevent it : and I think it very necessary
you should do so." This letter seems to have cured James of any
intention he might have had of yielding to the Commons.

Then Bancroft fell ill and hindered the consideration of his
project by the Lords for so long a time that, on June 8, the Bishop
of London was desired to get the Archbishop's notes and plans
so that the committee might be at work on them. On June 23,
Bancroft himself reported, to the Lords, the committee's attempts
to determine "How and by what Device or means every Benefice
in England may be made fit and competent for a Learned minister. ""
His remedy was to resume the payment in kind of all predial tithes,
or tithes due from the owners of land ; of all personal tithes, — one-
tenth of the increase of flocks, herds, and the poultry yard; — and
the reviving in full of all oblations and fees at marriages and

256

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

burials, and of the customary presents at the great church festivals.1
Commutations were to be abolished altogether. Then all land
which had once paid and all land which had not paid but was now
able to pay, should be titheable in kind. Many of the old abbey
lands had been exempted from the regular tithes to the parson
because they already paid them to the abbey ; and the laity, who
had come into possession of these lands at the Reformation, strenu
ously insisted that the exemption had passed to them with the land.
Then, the enclosing of fields and the change from tillage into
pasture had exempted many from tithes of grain, or great tithes,
and had made them liable only to small tithes. If this was unjust
to the parson, was it fair to the layman to demand the tenth part
of a crop of grain he did not raise? Must he pay, not only the
old tithe, but also another tenth of his flocks now pastured on those
fields? That was a far more difficult point than the abbey lands,
but the Archbishop 's remedy was, as before, the payment of the old
tithes; and was perhaps as fair as any other scheme could have
been, for any change at all would produce injustice.

Then, all land which had been lately put under cultivation, the
old common lands, waste land, the newly-drained fenland, and the
like, should all pay tithes in kind. Small tithes, of hops, mead, and
roots, of coal, brush-wood, branches trimmed from trees, of lime
and brick kilns, of honey, wax, and fruit, and the rakings of the
hay-field, were to be paid in kind and rigorously insisted upon.
As if he had not asked enough, Bancroft next wished a subsidy for
the purchase of impropriations in each bishopric to augment the
smallest livings. All tithes now paid to any other person than the
parson (of course outside of impropriations) were to be transferred
to the true owner. Salisbury also produced a project2 in many
ways identical with Bancroft's, providing that all vicarages should
be endowed with at least twenty acres of glebe land; and suggest
ing that the first fruits and tenths of the poorest clergy might be
remitted by the King. A modern observer is inclined to think that,

1 S. P. Dom. Jac. T, 56, no. 57. The Lords Journals leave no room for

' ' Some Protects to better the liuings doubt that Bancroft was the author,

of ministers by the Archbishop of Printed in Collier's Ecclesiastical His-

Canterbury. ' ' Another copy is Har- tory, II, 697.

leian MSS. 828. f . 30, endorsed "A 2 This seems to be what is meant by

proiect to better the Livinge of min- a break in the MSS. headed "The L.

isters, offered by the Bishop to the S. ' '
Lordes of the Higher House, 1610."

257

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

if Bancroft had asked for less, he might have secured something,
but he realised fully the difficulties of the situation, and the temper
of the men with whom he had to deal, and believed that a sweeping
change stood quite as much chance of being accepted by the House
of Commons as some less radical measure. He was probably right,
for to increase the value of a part of the benefices would have
taxed a part of the laity and not the rest, and would have aroused
violent opposition: all must pay or no one would acquiesce at all.
But no one acquiesced ; and the House of Commons lost no time in
rejecting the whole scheme. There were also conferences between
the Lower House and the bishops upon ecclesiastical affairs, espe
cially one on July 6, when Bancroft seems to have spent much time
in answering complaints against the Canons, and denied that they
needed the confirmation of Parliament.1 But no definite result
was attained.

The session of 1610, and with it the first Parliament of James I,
was drawing to a close when the great petition was delivered. In
it, besides other grievances, was a summary of all the matters
ecclesiastical complained of in the preceding sessions, each of which
had had its bill or petition or committee and each of which had in
turn contributed something to the total, which, growing by what it
fed on, had attained in 1610 such portentous length that the
original petition presented to the King was closely written on a
sheet of parchment nearly four feet square.2 James laughed
heartily when he saw it and asked if they meant to present him
with a table cloth. On July 23, the King read his answer,3 re
affirming the episcopal position, on the ground that the Commons'
demands were impossible of execution, but declaring that he and
his clergy were ready to assent to any just or feasible project of
reform. As to the silenced ministers, he said, no church in the
world, Catholic or Reformed, allowed "such ministers to preach
in it as have refused to subscribe to the Doctrine and Discipline
settled in it and maintained by it." He promised, however, not to
be harsh and to judge each case upon its merits. While he detested
the "covetous and immoderate Heaping of many Benefices to-

1 S. P. Dom. Jac. I, 56, no. 9. ment. July 7 (?) 1610, presented on
There was much flat denial and con- July 8, 1610.

tradiction by both parties. 3 Printed in Lords Journals, II,

2 S. P. Dom. Jac. I, 56, no. 10. 658, dated July 23, 1610.
This seems to be the original parch-

258

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

gether," he could not take their benefices from the present incum
bents any more than he could dispossess laymen of their freeholds,
for by the common law a benefice ranked as a freehold. Further
more, he did not think it practicable to limit ministers to one
benefice, "until some further Provision be made, that the Benefices
of this Realm might be made competent Livings for Godly Ministers
and Learned Preachers. ' '

Some years previous, he continued, a bill had been drafted by
the bishops and a canon passed by Convocation, "wherein they
shewed themselves very willing to forbear the Censure of Excom
munication for Contumacy, where the original cause was of no
great Weight and of private Interest, so as there might be a Law
made whereby Contumacy in such Causes might otherwise be
sufficienly (sic) punished." The House of Commons had rejected
that bill, but whenever other adequate provision for such cases
should be made by Parliament, both he and his clergy would be
glad to give their assent to the abolition of excommunication. He
promised to reform the High Commission by issuing no more
diocesan commissions, and by making the quorum for business five
instead of three. Then, recounting the history of the debates upon
prohibitions, he desired both jurisdictions to keep their own limits ;
and added that he had strictly commanded the common law judges
to grant their prohibitions in a right and lawful form, and only for
a just and reasonable cause.

Thus, the King reaffirmed the archiepiscopal view of the situa
tion: that the grievances complained of rose from the necessity of
administering the Church with the enfeebled constitution left it
by the Reformation. The clergy were ignorant, unable to preach,
pluralists, and nonresident, because their incomes were insufficient ;
excommunication was used because there was no other penalty ; the
oath ex officio might be unjust to the prisoner, but it was an abso
lutely essential point of ecclesiastical procedure; the High Com
mission interfered in every department of ecclesiastical government,
because the Church could be administered in no other way. The
bishops were not in favour of the abuses, but when the alternative
presented was the abolition of the only efficient administrative
powers the institution possessed, the clergy could only reply with
Bancroft, "we may never yield to any course that shall procure
apparently our utter overthrow," or fail to do our best to resist

259

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

the breach * ' which is sought to be made in the very form and frame
of the church. ' '

The bill on pluralities had not been passed nor the grievances
of the Commons admitted, but, in pursuance of an order from the
King, Bancroft forwarded a long letter to the various bishops on
the subject of pluralities which was in reality another of those
ordinances by which the actual administration of the Church was
carried on.1 He called upon the bishops chiefly for information
as to the number and location of the pluralists, their learning
and capability; and also for similar statistics of recusants. The
law which existed must be enforced; the canon law against the
plurlists, the statute law and the oath of allegiance against the
recusants; in which task the Archbishop offered the bishops all
possible assistance from the High Commission and the Privy Coun
cil. ' * We that are bishops, ' ' he said, ' * have much to answer before
God for our slackness hitherto in this point, the law therein being
our warrant." "I must likewise charge you," he continued, "to
examine very narrowly the proceedings of your chancellors, com
missaries, archdeacons, and officials; for whilst we repose so much
trust in them as we do, and they intend little (I mean especially
chancellors, commissaries, and officials) but their own profit, many
true complaints and mischiefs do indeed thereof ensue."

He also had complaints to make about the expensive apparel
worn by the richer clergy and their wives : ' ' Never was their pride
in that respect so great as now it is, from the dean to every curat«,
nothing being left that way to distinguish a bishop from any of
them: you shall find deans usually either in their velvet, damask
or satin cassocks, with their silk netherstocks, nay, some archdeacons
and inferior ministers having two benefices, are likewise for the
most part so attired . . . which is one principal motive why there
is such exclamation against double beneficed men. ... By such
their bravery in apparel they do procure no manner of credit unto
themselves, but rather, upon my knowledge, great envy and heart
burning against their calling and estates. " 2 It was, however, one

1 Cardwell, Documentary Annals, tion, 78, 79. In fact, what made
II, 154, 162, July 27, 1610. Bancroft wroth was that the increase

2 In 1578, Harrison in his descrip- of substance which he had secured
tion of England, contrasted the come- with great difficulty, the clergy pro-
ly attire of the English clergy with ceeded straightway to spend for fine
the extravagance of the papists. clothes instead of for education and1
Elizabethan England, Furnival's edi- books.

260

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1610

thing to command and quite another to execute, and the main
difficulty, with which Bancroft had to contend, was the inefficiency
of the officials who must carry out his orders.

The last task to which Bancroft addressed himself was the final
consolidation of the new Scotch episcopal administration. The
General Assembly at St. Andrews in May, 1610, had finally estab
lished Episcopacy as an administrative institution; but the bishops
were still unconsecrated, and were therefore still lacking in the
most essential of all claims to the title. In considering the arrange
ments for the ceremony, the objection was raised that the candi
dates for consecration had not been ordained as priests under the
Anglican ritual, but had merely been "called" by a Scotch
presbytery, so that doubts were freely expressed as to the validity
of their consecration as bishops, unless it were preceded by ordi
nation as clergymen according to the Anglican forms. Bancroft
produced authorities from the Church Fathers to sustain his
opinion that no new ordination was needed; and added the real
reason which his keen intuition had at once grasped, that "the
Ordination given by the Presbyters must be esteemed lawful, other
wise that it might be doubted if there was any lawful vocation in
most of the Reformed Churches. ' ' 1

This difficulty disposed of, the Scotch bishops declared that
they would not be consecrated by either archbishop, because that
would renew the old claims of the predominance of the English
Church over the Scottish Church. Bancroft yielded readily to
their scruples, for he saw that this seed of possible discord must
not be left between the King and the bishops as well as between the
bishops and the presbyteries. The English Church must be a sister,
not a mother, and the English archbishop must advise as a friend
and not command or claim the right to command as a superior. So,
on October 21, 1610, the Archbishop of Glasgow with two of his
brethren was consecrated with elaborate ceremonies by the Bishops
of London, Ely, Rochester, and Bath and Wells, at the Chapel of
the Bishop of London near St. Paul's Cathedral.2

1 Spotiswood, History of the Church copied many other things from the

of Scotland, 514 (Edition of 1666). ame source. Aerius Eedivivus, 382.

His authority is excellent, for he was 2 Spotiswood, and also Melvill 's

one of those consecrated. Heylin re- Diary, 803. The royal order is in

peats this entry with some changes, Eymer, Foedera, XVI, 706, October

but without acknowledgment; he 15, 1610.

261

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

Impressive and significant as the service was meant to be, Ban
croft's good sense made it a private and not a public rite. The
mere fact of the consecration was sure to arouse enough bitterness
in Scotland, but the ministers would have been doubly incensed if
the humiliation and dishonour of the Kirk (as they termed it), had
been made a spectacle for the London crowd, parading daily in the
nave at St. Paul's.

It was the last public act of Richard Bancroft. He had been ill
all summer, his absences from Parliament being excused by the
Chancellor day after day on the score of his health. The confine
ment as a student in his early years, his residence in the marshes
of Ely and of Ireland, coupled to the fogs and dampness of Fulham
and Lambeth had sown and nourished ague and stone, diseases
common at that day but severe and excessively painful. All the
last week of October he suffered agonies, and died at last on Novem
ber 2, 1610.1 "It is remarkable," wrote Melvill at the conclusion
of his Diary,2 "how soon thereafter the great Judge of this world
called the two chief instruments of the overthrow of Discipline of
the Kirk of Scotland to their account and judgment: for Richard
Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, at the funeral sermon
made by Abbott, Bishop of London, had the commendation of the
overthrowing of the Presbyteries of the Kirk of Scotland, was
himself fearfully overthrown by fearful and terrible torments and
desperate death at Lambeth in that same month of November, at
the verie tyme of the Scottish bishops' inauguration: and in the
month of February thereafter immediately following, the Earl of
Dunbar was by death plucked from the height of his honour and
credit at court. . . . And thus was Jericho built up again in Scot
land, as also the curse executed upon the builders. ' '

i The date is settled by the in- those buried there. In some books,

scription on his tombstone, which the date is given as November 12,

with others of that type, has lately which of course is merely New Style;

been removed from its place in Lam- November 2 being the Old Style,
beth Chancel, and a tablet, inserted in 2 ROw copies this statement in

the wall, bearing all the names of some places nearly verbatim.

262

CHAPTER XII

THE RESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION

The death of Bancroft marks the close of the period of recon
struction. Save for the fulfilment of the plans for the reconstruc
tion of the High Commission by the issuance of the Letters Patent
of 1611, Abbot, the new Archbishop, busied himself but little with
the administration of the Church. He preferred theological con
troversy to hearing law suits, appearing to have been content to
continue his predecessor's policy, and to carry on the actual ad
ministrative work by his predecessor's agents. His long primacy
from 1610 to 1633 was, in reality, a continuation of Bancroft's.
If there was, on the whole, no retrogression, there was certainly
little progress.

In fact the death of the leader seems to be the only adequate
explanation of the cessation of effort in 1610, for much remained
to be done. The greatest issues had not been settled nor the worst
difficulties obviated. The situation had been modified, not reme
died. The clergy was still ignorant, nonresident, and pluralist;
their incomes were, in general, as inadequate as before ; the coercive
power of the High Commission and of the ecclesiastical courts had
been diminished rather than increased. Moreover, the enemies
of the Establishment were still active: for the Puritans, although
cowed, were neither demoralised nor disorganised; the Catholics
seemed loyal, but were still controlled by the Jesuits; and their
priests formed ostensibly a missionary organisation for the con
version of England.

On the other hand, very much had certainly been accomplished.
The administration of the Church had become possible, the life
of the clergy tolerable. The union of small benefices, situated
either in the same town or village or within a mile or two, had
gone on rapidly; the exchange of benefices by pluralists had been
effected in many cases, and enabled a man practically to reside on
both at the same time ; often the personal intervention of the bishop

263

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

or archbishop, had secured a compromise between the parson
and his people, by the terms of which part of the old tithes were
again paid in kind. Suits were brought in great numbers, and
many decisions were rendered on cases where the modus decimandi
was in doubt. In 1609, the poorer clergy were relieved from the
payment of taxes on their glebe land,1 and, as their tithes were
already exempt, and most of them paid no first fruits, they were
at last able to devote their small stipend to their own needs. Ban
croft had also established the rule that, whatever a man's necessities,
he should not relieve them without the knowledge of the higher
authorities. If he wished to hold two benefices, he must have a
dispensation; if he wished to be nonresident altogether on one or
the other, he must secure permission ; and he must not preach with
out license.

Bancroft had also laid great stress on the necessity of leaving
to succeeding generations as complete a record as possible of the
state of the Church. The episcopal registries were overhauled:
and arranged ; the parish records sorted, patched up, and put away.
Then were written down and filed terriers of the amount of glebe
land ; sworn statements of the amount of tithes paid by each bit
of land, or of the modus decimandi of the parish as a whole ; with
the facts concerning leases, agreements, the condition of the timber,
water rights, and the like. The cathedrals and the colleges were
strictly investigated.

The proportion of learned men and of preachers among the
clergy had certainly been increased. The Visitation Records con
tain many entries stating that some man hitherto unable to preach
had now become qualified and had secured his license. Those who
could not preach read homilies. It was becoming difficult for a
man without at least a bachelor's degree to secure induction. In
the diocese of Norwich, three-quarters of all the men instituted
between January, 1603, and January, 1608, possessed degrees. Of
these, eighty-four were Masters of Arts; nineteen were Bachelors
of Arts; twelve were Bachelors of Divinity, while seven possessed
higher degrees. Of the remaining fourth, most of them had studied
for a time at one of the universities.

A good deal of attention had been paid to the proper chanting
of the ritual, and to the music performed in the cathedrals. Caps
i Petyt MSB. 538. 38, f. 319.
264,

THE RESULTS OF EECONSTRUCTION

and surplices had been more generally worn than in the previous
half century, and with less objection. The fasts and festivals
were better observed. On the whole, during the years, 1604-1610,
the repairing and beautifying of the churches had progressed
rapidly throughout the East and South, and to some extent in the
West and North, while in London many new edifices had been erect
ed. The glass broken by the zealots of Edward VI 's and Eliza
beth's time was in a measure replaced, and some fine stained glass
was put in. A great effort was made at Lambeth to place in every
parish a copy of the Prayer Book, Bible, and Canons, and of Jew
el's works; and to see that the royal printer provided cheap copies
for sale.

In other directions, the results of reconstruction had been none
the less considerable. The outward form of the Church — its Can
ons, its liturgy, its statement of faith in the Thirty-Nine Articles —
was so complete that it has not yet received serious alteration.
The administrative constitution, as revived by Bancroft, also lasted
until the nineteenth century. By 1610, the High Commission had
attained its final form, and had amply demonstrated its usefulness.
For the time being, too, the battle with the common law, though
technically lost, had been practically won, and, in the main, the out
lines of the agreement between Coke and Bancroft were followed
in later decisions ; the few alterations in it have been in Bancroft 's
favour. The period of reconstruction, then, saw the completion of
the institutional form of the English Church.

The struggles of those thirty years had, moreover, trained a
corps of skilled administrators who guided the official policy of
the Establishment long after Bancroft was dead. They continued
his administrative traditions, followed his precepts, and in the
main were responsible for such progress as was made in the next
quarter of a century. Sir John Lambe, Sir Charles Caesar, Sir
John Bennett, became the backbone of Abbot's administration,
and practically controlled the High Commission and the ecclesias
tical courts. But far more important than this had been the
awakening in the clergy as a whole of a new spirit of corporate life
and of a realisation of the necessity for interdependence. Where
under Elizabeth every clergyman, from the bishop down to the
meanest curate, had been scheming and contriving to keep his own
post, regarding only his individual comfort, each clergyman had

265

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

now come to realise the beauty of the Church as an institution, the
sanctity of its buildings, the mysticism of its service, the nobility
of its mission. For the first time since the breach with Rome, the
Church as an institution became admirable in the eyes of its clergy
as a whole. The ecstatic mysticism of George Herbert was a logical
consequence of the teachings of Richard Bancroft, the full expres
sion of one of the greatest results of the period of reconstruction.
The Church, which the grandfathers had scorned, which the fathers
had tolerated, became an object of enthusiastic loyalty to the sons.

No less a change had taken place in the attitude of the nation.
In 1583, there had been three comparatively small bodies of ardent,
enthusiastic men — the Churchmen, the Puritans, and the Catholics
— all seeking to win the allegiance of the great mass of the people,
who, indifferent, apathetic, and bewildered by the variety of pos
sible views, embraced none with fervor. By tradition and habit
the majority still inclined in 1583 to the old mass ; but their grow
ing loyalty to Elizabeth, their hostility to Spain, and the pressure
of the penal laws, induced them to give a more or less passive alle
giance to the Establishment. Such a condition of affairs could not
continue long. If the majority were at heart Catholic, the national
Church would be transformed to express their beliefs; if, on the
other hand, Presbyterianism had struck the dominant note in the
hearts of Englishmen, the Church would inevitably have been Puri
tan as soon as its members became conscious of their real beliefs.
Only that settlement would endure which should be clear, undenia
bly legal, and above all, in harmony with the traditions and aspira
tions of the majority. Such an institution was the Church as
reconstructed by Bancroft and to it the great majority of the
people gave their sincere allegiance. Later events proved its
sincerity. The outbreak of the Civil "War was conclusive
evidence that Englishmen were not ready to support Catholicism
or Arminianism. The fall of the Commonwealth demonstrated con
clusively that England was not Puritan. The Restoration re
stored neither the old monarchy nor the old Parliament, neither
the old courts nor the old law, but the Church as Bancroft left
it.

Nor was the constituency of the Church by any means narrow and
exclusive. Bancroft's settlement erected no barriers and founded
no new distinctions. Based upon a union of the moderates of all

266

THE RESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION

parties, Puritan, Catholic, and Episcopalian, it tolerated all but
the most extreme. The Archbishop had seen that, in view of the
necessary existence of a strong minority with whom hostility to
the Church was the very basis of its creed, no hard and fast test
of ecclesiastical loyalty could be successful. The most that could
be hoped for would be the tacit acceptance of the legal position
of the Church as the established religion of the realm. Those who
would stay in the Church if not too closely pressed, must be kept
in, whether Puritan or Catholic; those who would not come in,
but who asked only to be allowed to worship quietly and unob
trusively according to their own ritual, should be tolerated by State
and Church alike ; but those who would neither come in nor remain
peaceably without, should be chastened with the rod and driven
from the land. Although for many decades the State denied Dis
senters and Catholics legal recognition of any sort, in practice it ad
mitted tacitly from this time on the existence of these alien views
and the right of their adherents to worship quietly. It demanded
from both in return unswerving temporal loyalty, unfeigned public
recognition of the legality of the Established Church, and respectful
conduct toward its officers, adherents, and services. During the pe
riod of reconstruction, then, was created and established that policy
of tolerating illegal worship which has existed to the present mo
ment and which is so characteristically English. What it meant was,
that Bancroft obtained the adhesion to the Church, not only of
the mass of the nation who saw and believed, but of the past ene
mies of the Church, those who saw, but, unbelieving, acquiesced.
His greatest triumph was that, from that moment, the whole En
glish nation has recognised the legality of the Establishment.1

The reaction against the Book of Discipline and dogmatic Cal
vinism, together with the friendliness to the Catholics and the en
deavour to draw as many of them as possible into the Establish
ment, laid the foundations of that theological movement known
as Arminianism, whose first clear traces are found in 1607 and
1608, but whose full fruition was not realised for nearly fifteen
years. Among the great mass of the people now brought to ac
quiesce in the existence of the Church, and to take on the whole
a sort of pride in it, there were many who were strongly drawn

1 From the point of view of ec- Civil War and Commonwealth is an
clesiastical history, the period of the episode — a temporary experiment.

267

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

by the old traditions toward Catholic ritual and doctrines; and,
as their comprehension of what dogmatic Calvinism involved be
came clearer, so the expression of their dissent became more decided.
Then, the pressure of the penal laws upon the laity had caused
many to enter the Church, who, forced by circumstances to re
nounce the papal supremacy, were unable to renounce Catholic
ritual and dogma. Probably after the defeat of the Armada in
1588, many gave their adhesion. The quarrels of the Jesuits and
seculars and the accession of James I had resulted in further gains ;
but the Gunpowder Plot was responsible for the defection of the
largest number. Thus it was that in 1608 the presence in the
Church of these quasi- Catholics (if they might be so called) had
produced a perceptible influence on its theological beliefs. Inas
much as the Catholic had already renounced the Pope by actually
taking the oath of allegiance or by receiving the Anglican com
munion, why should he not free himself from the weight of the
penal laws and secure his family from alarms and surveillance by
joining the State Church altogether? And if he found there ob
served very nearly those liturgical forms which he valued so high
ly, there was even less reason to hesitate. To make his adhesion
as easy as possible and the wrench from his old associations as slight
as possible was clearly the best way to ensure the stability of the
new compromise. How little of his previous ideas a Catholic must
renounce to feel at home in the English Church now became the
vital question of ecclesiastical policy.

The movement gained its real currency with the clergy and laity
because it was the natural expression of a tendency which had al
ready shown great strength on the Continent. Arminianism was
the English equivalent of the Catholic Counter-reformation. As
the dogmatic Reformation itself had come late in England so the
Counter-reformation came years after the first appearance of sim
ilar impulses in Europe; and while in Europe it took the form
of the reinstallation of Catholicism, in England the strength of
political Protestantism precluded its achieving more than the em
phasising of those resemblances to Catholic ritual and dogma which
Elizabeth had so carefully preserved. Where the Elizabethan
prelates had been wont to lay stress upon the Calvinistic side of
the Elizabethan settlement, it was now those affinities to Catholic
practices and beliefs which received attention. In the succeeding

268

THE EESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION

period of English ecclesiastical history, then, the controversial is
sues are more often dogmatic and ritualistic than administrative;
and its general tone is not unlike that of the last quarter of the
sixteenth century in Europe. Here was begun that alliance
of Catholic and Episcopalian in support of the Establishment
which was so conspicuous a factor of the Civil War.

Great and significant as these results were, the remodelled
Church was neither uniform in law nor consistent in practice; nor
was it as precise and logical in the statement of its new position
as might have been desired. Being essentially English, it lacked
that theoretical perfection, that symmetry of outline, that logical
arrangement which modern thinkers admire. Like all English
constitutional settlements which have endured, it was a collection
of makeshifts for obviating certain very practical difficulties. The
Puritans complained loudly at the time that the bishops temporised
and refused to "lay the axe to the root of the tree." In a sense,
the charge was true. But they did not because they could not.
The greatest difficulties of all — the lack of sufficient maintenance
for the clergy, the lack of coercive force in the ordinary adminis
trative fabric — had not been remedied because they could not be.
They had been the result of the natural causes operating during
a period of transition. Like the Reformation of Henry VIII and
Elizabeth, Reconstruction was a stage in the growth of the religious
consciousness of the English people and of its institutional ex
pression. It was caused in reality by the working of deep-
lying natural forces which were quite beyond human control.
The worst difficulties resulted from agricultural and financial
changes which affected all Europe, and which could be reme
died only by those same economic forces which had given them
birth. Thus, the amelioration of ecclesiastical incomes, and the
consequent improvement in the character and learning of the
clergy, was really effected by the subsequent economic development
of England. The ecclesiastical property, which had been insuffi
cient in 1603, was in 1832 enormously valuable, but the increase
in value had not been voted by Parliament. It came from the
growth of cities where villages had been ; from the rise of factories
among the gorse and heather on the hillsides; from improved
methods of agriculture and grazing ; from the growth of a merchant
marine and the expansion of foreign trade. From all these varied

269

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

causes had resulted an enormous change in the conditions of mate
rial life in England of which the clergy reaped the benefit. The
ecclesiastical commissions have redistributed the property and
have equalised, conditions, but economic changes have been the
sole solution of the economic difficulties which confronted the
Church in 1603.

The other great difficulty in 1603, the lack of coercive force, was
remedied, curiously enough, by doing away with the necessity for
it. The High Commission was not "restored" in 1660, because
the recognition of the legality of the Establishment by the vast
majority of the nation made coercion less necessary, and made
the Commission chiefly a high court for ecclesiastical appeals. It
was, therefore, not performing, in 1640, anything which the ordi
nary hierarchy could not do, and the temporal courts still de
clared its authority to fine and imprison illegal. In 1660, then,
the ordinary ecclesiastical administration stood alone. Gradually,
the State encroached more and more upon the powers of Convoca
tion and of the bishops; the common law courts successfully
filched away the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the authority over
the laity for the correction of moral offenses became more and
more unpopular, and an opinion began to be circulated that the
Canons of 1604, not having been confirmed by Parliament, did not
bind the laity. Thus, the field of ecclesiastical administration was
gradually narrowed to the supervision of the clergy and the pun
ishment of ecclesiastics for spiritual offences by purely spiritual
penalties. Once more the powers of the Church became adequate
for the performance of its functions, because those functions which
it had not performed well, had been shorn off. Paradoxically
stated, the ecclesiastical administration, weakened by the loss of
its old jurisdiction, was stronger and more adequate than before.

270

APPENDICES

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

THE PRECEDENT FOR THE CANONS OE1 1604

Canon I

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, i.

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, i. (nearly verbatim.)

Form of Subscription for all ministers, 1559.

Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXXVII.

Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws
Ecclesiastical, Historical Manuscripts' Commission Report,
Hat field House, IV, 94-95. (February 1590-1.) Another copy
in Petyt MSS. 538.38, f. 170. Imperfectly printed in Strype
Whitgift, II, 59-60.

Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen. April,
1592. Strype, Annals, IV, 120.

Canon II
I Elizabeth c. 1.

Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXXVII.
Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws

Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.
Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen, 1592.

Canon III
Visitation Articles for Rochester and Canterbury, 1589, vii .(Strype,

Whit gift, I, 593.)
Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws

Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.

Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen, 1592.
"A Godly Treatise," (Strype, Annals, III, part ii, 152.)

Canon IV

Form of Subscription for all ministers, 1559.

273

APPENDIX

A proclamation against the despisers or breakers of the orders
prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Cardwell, An
nals, I. 383. Cf. id., 240, 263.

13 Elizabeth c. 12, sect. 2.

Rule of the Ward Court of London, Stow, Survey of London,
Book V, p. 320. (ed. 1720.)

Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws
Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.

Articles proposed by Whitgift to the imprisoned Puritans, Janu
ary, 1591-2. Strype, Whitgift, II, 85.

Canon V

Canons of 1571, art. i, sect. 3, end ; art. vi, sect. 2.
13 Elizabeth c. 12.
Visitation Articles of 1576, xxi.

Declaration prefixed to the new edition of the Thirty-Nine Arti
cles, 1604.

Canon VI

Canons of 1571, art. vi, sect. 2.

Addition to the Articles for acknowledgement of the Laws
Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.

Canon VII
Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws

Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.

Articles proposed by Whitgift to the imprisoned Puritans, 1591-2.
Means how to settle a Godly and Charitable Quietness in the

Church, Strype, Whitgift, I, 387 ; II, 135.

Canon VIII
8 Elizabeth c. 1.
Canons of 1571, art. vi, sect. 2.

Canon IX

Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXXIV.

Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws
Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.

274

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Letter of the imprisoned Puritan ministers to the Queen, April
1592.

Canon X

There is no direct precedent, but see "The Unlawful Practice of
Prelates against Godly Ministers." Strype, Annals, III, part
i, 291. Compare Council of Antioch, 340, c. ii. V; Council
of Chalcedon, c. xviii; Council of Gangra, 324, c. v, vi.

Canon XI

Addition to the Articles for Acknowledgement of the Laws
Ecclesiastical, 1590-1.

Canon XII
Articles proposed by Whitgift to the imprisoned Puritans, 1591-2.

Of Divine Service and the Administration of the Sacraments

Canon XIII

Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxiv.

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xx. (verbatim, except for the omission
of one clause.)

Canon XIV

A Proclamation against the despisers or breakers of the orders pre
scribed in the Book of Common Prayer, 1573.
Visitation Articles, 1576, i.

Canon XV
Articles of 1549, vii.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xlviii. (extensive additions.)

Canon XVI

Parker's Visitation Articles for Cathedral and Collegiate Churches,
1567, iii.

Canon XVII

New.

275

APPENDIX

Canon XVIII
Articles of 1549, iii, iv.

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xxxviii, (verbatim, with some addi
tions,) Iii, xxxix, xvii.

Canon XIX
Canons of 1571, v. (in substance and style only.)

Canon XX
New.

Canon XXI
Visitation Articles of 1576, Iii.

Canon XXII

New.

Canon XXIII
Advertisements of 1564, x. (additions.)

Canon XXIV
Advertisements of 1564, xi. (additions.)

Canon XXV

Advertisements of 1564, xii. (additions.)
Canons of 1571, art. ii, sect. 4. (altered.)

Canon XXVI

Bonner's Injunctions of 1542, ix.
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxv.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xxi. (first few lines verbatim.)

Canon XXVII
Advertisements of 1564, xv. (in part only.)

Canon XXVIII

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xxxiii. (in substance only.)
Canons of 1571, v. (verbatim, although in the Latin form of 1604
appear considerable changes in wording.)

276

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Canon XXIX
Advertisements of 1564, xvi, xvii. (in substance only.)

Canon XXX

New.

Ministers — Their Ordination, Function, and Charge

Canon XXXI
New.

Possibly, Bacon's Considerations touching the Pacification of the
Church, 1603, is precedent for the idea.

Canon XXXII
New.

Canon XXXIII
Articles of 1575. vi.
Articles of 1583, vii. (additions in 1604.)
Canons of 1585, i.
Canons of 1597, i. (repetition verbatim of Canon i of 1585.)

Canon XXXIV

Lyndwood, Provinciale, lib. I, tit. 5, 6, 9.

Advertisements of 1564, xxii. (one clause only.)

13 Elizabeth c. 12.

Canon of 1571, art. i, sect. 6. (real beginning of this canonical pro
vision, requiring him to produce letters dimissory, to know
Latin, and to bring testimonals from some who knew him.)

Articles of 1575, i. (first appearance of the requirement that he be
23 or 24 years old at the least, subscribe to the Articles of
1562, and give an account of his faith in Latin.)

Articles of 1583, viii. (substance only.)

Canons of 1585, i. (Latin version practically verbatim.)

Orders of 1593, i.

Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, ii. (Wilkins, Concilia, IV,
348.)

277

APPENDIX

Canons of 1597, i.

Tke Archbishop of Canterbury's letters with Articles touching the
ecclesiastical courts, 1601, vi, (Wilkins, Concilia, IV, 366.)

Canon XXXV

Canons of 1585, i. (the penalty begins here.)

Orders of 1593, i.

Canons of 1597, i.

Bacon's Considerations touching the Pacification of the Church.

Canon XXXVI

Articles of 1583, vi. (practically verbatim.)

(The history of this Canon has been fully treated in Book II, Chap
ter IV, and its precedent has been quoted in full in chrono
logical order in the Appendix following.)

Canons XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX

New.

Canon XL

Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxxi.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xxvi. (much expanded.)

Canon XLI

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, iv.

Canons of 1571, viii.

Canons of 1585, v. (The English version of 1604 is almost a trans
lation of this Latin version of 1585, but the Latin version
of 1604 is worded differently.)

Orders agreed upon by the archbishopps and byshopps, etc., at the
parliament 1588 and commanded by her Majestic exactlie and
diligentlie to be observed and put in execution. Cardwell's
Annals, II, 36.

Canons of 1597, ii.

Canon XLII

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, i. (merely states that the deans are to
see the law observed.)

278

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Canons of 1571, art. ii, sect. 5. (precisely the same in sense but dif
ferent in wording.)
Articles agreed upon by the archbishopps and byshopps, 1588.

Canon XLIII
Visitation Articles of 1576, iv.

Canon XLIV
Visitation Articles of 1576, v.

Canon XLV

Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1538, vi.
Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, xviii. (slight.)
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, ii.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, iii.
Orders of 1586, vi.

Canon XL VI

Advertisements of 1564, vii.
Articles of 1575, x.
Orders of 1586, vii. (greatly changed.)

Canon XLVII
Canons of 1597, iv. (changed slightly.)

Canon XL VIII

Canons of 1571, art. v, sect. 9. (additions and omissions.)
Orders of Convocation, 1601, v. (Wilkins, Concilia, IV, 363.)

Canon XLIX

Advertisements of 1564, ix. (repeated in part verbatim.)
Canons of 1571, art. vi, sect. 1. (slight similarity only.)

Canon L

Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1538, ix.
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, x.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, viii.

279

APPENDIX

Canon LI

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, viii, xix. (slight resemblance only.)
Canons of 1571, art. ii, sect. 6. (substance only.)

Canon LII

Canons of 1571, art. v, sect. x. (substance identical, but the lan
guage in the Latin form is different.)

Canons LIII and LIV

New.

Canon LV

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, end. (word for word with a few addi
tions. )

Canon LVI
The Privy Council's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,

January 17, 1579, (Wilkins, Concilia, IV, 292.)
Also the recommendations of the Archbishop of York in 1597,

favoring a much more extreme Canon. Historical Manuscripts,

Commission Report, Hatfield House, VII, 452.

Canon LVII
Articles of 1549, xiii.

Canon LVIII

New.

Canon LIX

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, xi.
Articles of 1549, viii.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xliv. (verbatim with a short additional

passage, "and all fathers and mothers.")
Articles of 1575, x. (merely a command to catechise.)
Orders of 1586, iv. (sense only.)

Canons LX and LXI

New.

280

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Canon LXII
Orders of 1593, ii.
Canons of 1597, v.

Canon LXIII

New.

Canon LXIV
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, end. (much expanded.)

Canon LXV
Canons of 1597, viii.

Canon LXVI

New.

Canon LXVII
Advertisements of 1564, xix. (identical in substance.)

Canons LXVIII and LXIX
New.

Canon LXX

Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1538, xii.
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xiii, xxx. ( *)
Injunctions of 1559, x. (the same except for the addition of a final
clause.)

Canons LXXI and LXXII
New.

Canon LXXIII

Visitation Articles of 1569, xviii.
A proclamation against the despisers or breakers of the orders

prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, 1573.
Visitation Articles of 1576, xxiii.

Canon LXXIV

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, xii. (resemblance slight.)

281

APPENDIX

Queen's Injunctions, xxx. (from this came the preface of this

Canon. )
Advertisements of 1564, xxix-xxxvi. (from these came most of its

substance. )

Canons of 1571, art. vi, sect. 3.
Articles of 1583, iv.

Canon LXXV

Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1536, viii.
Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, xv.
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, viii.

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, vii. (repeated verbatim, with a few
additions.)

Canon LXXVI

New.

Schoolmasters

Canon LXXVII

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xl. (nearly verbatim.)
Canons of 1571, art. ix, sect.l. (Latin version of 1604 is the same,
except for additions.)

Canon LXXVIII

New.

Canon LXXIX

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, vii.
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxxiv.
Queen's Injunctions of 1559, xxxix.
Canons of 1571, art. ix, sect. 2. (differs somewhat in detail.)

Things Appertaining to Churches

Canon LXXX

Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1536, vii.
Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1538, ii, iii.

282

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, iii.

Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, vii.

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, vi.

Canons of 1571, art v, sect. 3. (exactly the same.)

See also, Canons of 1571, art. 1, sect. 8; art. 2, sect. 1.

Canon LXXXI
Canons of 1571, art. v, sect. 3.

Canon LXXXII

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, " Tables in the Church," latter part.
Advertisements of 1564, xiii, xiv. (contain what did not come from
the Injunctions.)

Canon LXXXIII

Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxviii.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xxiv. (altered.)

Canon LXXXIV

Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxix.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xxv. (some omissions.)

Canon LXXXV
Canons of 1571, art. v, sect. 2. (substance only.)

Canon LXXXVI

New.

Canon LXXXVII
Canons of 1571, art. x, sect. 3. (nearly exact.)

Canon LXXXVIII

Canons of 1571, art. v, sect. 7. (not exactly the same in details
and wholly dissimilar in language.)

Churchwardens or Questmen, and Sidesmen or Assistants

Canon LXXXIX
Canons or 1571, art. v. sect. 1. (nearly the same; some additions.)

283

APPENDIX

Canon XC

Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xxiv. (?)

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, xlvi. (additions, but otherwise the same.)
Proclamation of the Queen, "for the reverent use of all Churches

and churchyards." Cardwell, Annals, I, 310. (1561.)
Canons of 1571, art. v, sects. 2 and 8.

Canon XCI

New.

Ecclesiastical Courts Belonging to the Archbishop's Jurisdiction

Canon XCII
Canons of 1571, iv.

Canon XCIII

New.

Canon XCIV

Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. i,
sect. 1.

Canon XCV
Articles of 1583, ix.
Canons of 1585, i, sect. 5.

Canon XCVI

Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. i,
sect. 3.

Canon XCVII

Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. i,
sect. 2.

Canon XCVIII

New.

284

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Canon XCIX

Advertisements of 1564, xxviii.
Canons of 1571, art. x. sects. 5 and 6. (resemblance slight.)

Canon C

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, v.
Orders of 1593, iii.
Canons of 1597, art. v, sect. 3.

Canon CI

Bonner's Injunctions, 1542, v, vi.
Orders of Convocation, 1601, vi.
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Letter touching Ecclesiastical

Courts, 1601, viii.
See also Canon LXII of 1604.

Canon CII
Articles of 1585, iii.
Canons of 1597, v.

Canons CIII and CIV
New.

Canon CV

Canons of 1597, vi. (Except for the change of a few words this is
exactly the same as the Latin version of 1604. The last part
is new.)

Canon CVI
Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. v,

sect. 2.
Canons of 1597, vi. (exactly the same in the Latin version.)

Canon CVII
Canons of 1597, vi.

Canon CYIII
Canons of 1597, vi.

285

APPENDIX

Ecclesiastical Courts Belonging to the Jurisdiction of Bishops and
Archdeacons and the Proceedings in Them

Canon CIX
New.

Canon CX

Injunctions of Thomas Cromwell, 1538, xi.
Injunctions of Edward VI, 1547, xii.
Queen's Injunctions, 1559, ix. (somewhat altered.)

Canon CXI

Keally does no more than order the observance by the wardens of
Canon XVIII.

Canon CXII
Simply orders the wardens to observe Canon XXI

Canon CXIII

New.

Canon CXIV
Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, xii.

Canon CXV

New.

Canon CXVI

Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, v.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Letter with Articles touching the
Ecclesiastical Courts, 1601, ii.

Canon CXVII
The Archbishop's letter to the Bishops, May 22, 1601. (Wilkins,

Concilia, IV, 364.)
Orders of Convocation, 1601, iv.

Canons CXVIII, CXIX, CXX

New.

286

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

Canon CXXI

Orders of Convocation, 1601, iii.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Letter with Articles touching the
Ecclesiastical Courts, 1601, iii.

Canon CXXII

Puts into effect what was decided upon at the Hampton Court
Conference.

Canon CXXIII
Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, viii.

Canon CXXIV
Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, iii.

Canons CXXV, CXXVI
New.

Judges Ecclesiastical and their Surrogates
Canon CXXVII

New.

Canon CXXVIII
Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, vii. (in part only.)

Proctors

Canon CXXIX

Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. iv,
sect. 1. (substance exact.)

Canon CXXX

Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. iv,
sect. 2. (substance exact.)

287

APPENDIX
Canons CXXXI, CXXXII

New.

Canon CXXXIII

Whitgift's Statutes for the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1587, art. iv,
sect. 7.

Registrars

Canon CXXXIV
Parker's Statutes for the Court of Arches, 1573, First Series,

art. v; Second Series, art. iv.
Whitgift's Statutes, 1587, art. ii; art. iv, sect. 6.
Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, vi. ^

Canon CXXXV
New.

Canon CXXXYI
Orders of 1593, vii.

Canon CXXXVII

New.

Apparitors

Canon CXXXVIII

Orders of the Bishop of London, 1595, xvii, xviii.
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Letter with Articles touching
the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1601, v.

Authority of Synods
Canons CXXXIX, CXL, CXLI

New.

288

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS
PRECEDENTS FOR VISITATION ARTICLES

7. Parker's Visitation Articles for Diocese of Canterbury

1569

Article

1 No precedent.

2 Queen's Injunctions, 1559, 6,
24, 25, 55.

3 and 4 None.

5 Injunctions, 1559, 55,
Advertisements, 1564, and the
Prayer Book.

6 Dubious Precedent in Visita
tion^ Articles, 1559.

7 Advertisements, 1564. In
junctions, 1559, 8.

8 Visit. Art. 1559, 1. 1567,
1 and 2; Injunctions, 1559,
56.

9 Injunctions, 1559, 21.

10 Injunctions, 1559, 5;
Visit. Art. 1559, 4.

11 Injunctions, 1559, 7 and 26;
Visit. Art. 1559, 7 and 20.

12 Visit. Art. 1559, 53.

Article

13 Injunctions, 1559, 10;
Visit. Art. 1559. 10.

14 Injunctions, 1559, 4;

Visit. Art. 1559, 5, 20, 13, 53

15 Injunctions, 1559, 38.

16 Injunctions, 1559, 31, 36;
1 Eliz. c. 1;

Visit. Art. 1, 1559, 51.

17 Visit. Art. 1559, 33-36.

18 Injunctions, 1559, 34, 37;
Visit. Art. 1559, 51.

19 Injunctions, 1559, 44.

20 None.

21 Injunctions, 1559, 25.

22 None.

23 Visit. Art. 1559, 37.

24 Visit. Art. 1559, 41-43.

25 None.

26 Visit. Art. 1559, 47. (No
final clause with oath.)

77. Grindal's Visitation Articles for Province of Canterbury

1576

Article
1

Article

Queen's Injunctions, 1559, 48.
Visit. Art. 1569, 1.
Injunctions, 1559, 10.
Parts of Advertisements, 1564
and Visit. Art. 1569, 2.
Visit. Art. 1569, 6.

5 Visit. Art. 1569, 6.

6 Injunctions, 1559, 23, 47.

7 Declaration of the Articles
of Religion, 1559.

8 Prayer Book.

9 Advertisements, 1564.

Articles no. 3, 14, 16. 22. 25, 32, 34, 39, 40, 47, 52, 54, 55, 61, 63, and 64,
are without precedent.

289

APPENDIX

Article

10 Injunctions, 1559, 3, 4, 8.

11 13 Eliz. c. 12.

12 Injunctions, 1559, 4, 5.

13 Injunctions, 1559, 44.
15 Injunctions, 1559, 21.

Visit. Art. 1559, 16.

17 Injunctions, 1559, 5;
Visit. Art. 1559, 4.
Visit. Art. 1569, 10.

18 Injunctions, 1559, 16.

19 Injunctions, 1559, 9.
Visit. Art. 1559, 2.

20 1 Eliz. c. 2.

21 13 Eliz. c. 12.

23 Injunctions, 1559, 31;
Visit. Art. 1559, 51;
Visit. Art. 1569, 18.

24 Visit. Art. 1559. 51.

26, 27, 28 Visit. Art. 1559, 5, 20,
13;

Injunctions, 1559, 4;
Visit. Art. 1569, 14.

29 Injunctions, 1559.

30 Injunctions, 1559, 10;
Visit. Art. 1559, 10;
Visit. Art. 1569, 13.

31 Injunctions, 1559, 7, 26;
Visit. Art. 1559, 7, 20;
Visit. Art. 1569, 11.

33 Injunctions, 1559, 26;

Visit. Art. 1559, 5, 20, 13,

53; Visit. Art. 1567, 7;

Visit. Art. 1569, 14.
35 Visit. Art. 1559, 53;

Visit. Art. 1569, 12.

Article

36 Visit. Art. 1559, 53;
Visit. Art. 1569, 12.

37 Injunctions, 1559, 8:
Visit. Art. 1569. 7.

38 Injunctions, 1559, 19.

41 Injunctions, 1559, 51.

42 Visit. Art. 1559, 6, 9-15;
Visit. Art. 1567, 6.

43 and 44 Injunctions, 1559, 38;

1 Eliz. c. 2.

Visit. Art. 1569, 15.

45 Injunctions, 1559, 36;
Visit. Art. 1559, 51;
Visit. Art. 1569, 16.

46 Injunctions, 1559, 34.

48 Visit. Art. 1569, 21.

49 Visit. Art. 1559, 47;
Visit. Art. 1569, 26.

50 Visit. Art. 1569, 6.

51 Visit. Art. 1569, 19.
53 Usury, 13 Eliz. c. 8.

56 Visit. Art. 1569, 27;
Visit. Art. 1569, 20.

57 Visit. Art. 1559, 30;
Visit. Art. 1569, 22.

58 Visit. Art. 1559, 37;
Visit. Art. 1569, 23.

59 Visit. Art. 1559, 33-36;
Visit. Art. 1569, 17.

60 Visit. Art. 1559, 41, 42, 43;
Visit. Art. 1569, 24.

62 Visit. Art. 1559, 47;
Visit. Art. 1569, 26.

65 Visit. Art. 1569, 27.

Concluding Oath to the sides
men. New and important.

290

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

///. Whitgift's Articles for Visitation of Chichester Diocese

1585

Article

1 Visit. Art. 1576, 1 ;
London Visit. Art. 1581, 3.

2 In succession,

London Visit. Art. 1581, 4;

Visit. Art. 1576, 23;

Art. for Preaching, 1583, 2.

3 London Visit. Art. 1581, 6;
Visit. Art. 1576, 13, 47.

4 Visit. Art. 1576, 22.

5 London Visit. Art. 1581, 2;
Art. for Preaching, 1583, 4;
Visit. Art. 1576, 31, 32, 33.

Article

6 Visit. Art. 1576, 21, 23.

7 Visit. Art. 1576, 24, 25, 40.

8 New.

9 Visit. Art. 1576, 51, 54.

10 Visit. Art. 1576, 58, 59, 60.

11 Visit. Art. 1576, 54.

12 Visit. Art. 1576, 62.

13 Archbishop's Orders to the
Bishop of London, 1583, 3,
4, 5.

14 New.

15 New.

IV. Visitation Articles for Diocese of Salisbury

1588

Article

1 Visit. Art. 1576, 27, 35.

2 Visit. Art. 1576, 26.

3 Visit. Art. 1576, 2.

4 Visit. Art. 1576, 10, 12.

5 Visit. Art. 1576, 11.

6 Visit. Art. 1576, 26.

7 13 Eliz. c. 12;
Visit. Art. 1576, 20.

8 Injunctions 1559.

9 Visit. Art. 1576, 13.

10 Visit. Art. 1576, 52.

11 Visit. Art. 1576, 56.

12 Visit. Art. 1576, 59.

Article

13 Visit. Art. 1576, 57.

14 Visit. Art. 1576, 23.

16 None.

17 Visit. Art. 1576, 5.

18 Visit. Art. 1576, 25.

19 Visit. Art. 1576, 23.

20 Visit. Art. 1576, 51.

21 New.

22 Oath from the Visit. Art.
1576, 12, for the Cathedral
Visitation, and was taken
by Grindal from Parker's
Articles of 1567.

291

APPENDIX

Manner in Which Visitation Articles of 1605 Enforced Canons
of 1604, Forming New Precedent for Such Articles 1

•tide Article

New.

37,

38, 39 New.

II.

LXX.

III.

Visit. Art. 1576, 22.

LXXII.

IV.

LXXIII.

VII.

LXXIV.

VIII.

LXXVI.

XI.

LXXVII, LXXIX.

Advertisements, 1564.

XL, LXXV.

XIII.

LXXX, LXXXI, LXXXII.

XIV.

LXXXII, LXXXIII, XX.

Visit. Art. 1576, 61.

LXXXV.

XVIII.

LXXXVIII.

XIX.

52,

53, 54, 55, New.

XX.

LXVI.

XXI, XXII.

New.

XXVI, XXVII.

XIX.

XXVIII.

XXI.

XXIX.

XCI.

XXX.

XCIX.

XLI.

XCIX.

XLV.

Visit. Art. 1576, 22.

XLV, XLVI.

New.

XLVII.

CIX.

XLVIII.

CIX.

XLI.

67,

68 New.

XLIX.

CXXVII.

L, LI, LII.

New.

LVI.

Visit. Art. 1576, 54.

LVII.

cxxxv, cxxxvm.

LVIII.

CXXXIX, CXL.

LIX.

CXLI.

LXII, XCIX, C, CI.

CXXXVIII.

LXIV.

Cathedral Visitation of 1567

LXV.

1 Eoman numerals relate to the number of the Canon, and the Ara
bic to the Visitation Articles.

292

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

THE PRECEDENT FOR CANON XXXVI OF THE CANONS

OF 1604

FORMS OF SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED OF MINISTERS

1 5 3 7 (?)

Form signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops
of Durham, London, Bath and Wells, Ely, Salisbury, Worcester,
Rochester.

Original, signed, in Stowe MSS. 141 f. 36. Printed in Warner's
Facsimiles, No. 10. Also Pocock's Burnet, (1865) IV, 335.

The wordes of John in hys 20 chap. (V. 21) sicut misit me pater
et ego mitto vos etc, hath no respecte to a kyngys or a princes
power, but onely to shew howe that the ministres of the worde of
God, chosen and sent for that intente, are the messingiers of Christ
to teach the trueth of his gospell and lowse and bynde synne, etc
as Christe was the messinger of his Father. The wordes also of
sayncte Paule in the 20 Chap of the Actes (v. 28) Attendite nob is
(sic vobis) et uni verso gregi, in quo vos spiritus sanctus posuit
episcopos, regere ecclesiam dei, were spokyn to the Busshopes and
prestes to be diligent pastores of the people, both to teche them
diligently and also to be circumspecte, that false preachers shulde
not seduce the people, as followyth immediately after, in the same
place. Other places of scripture declare the highnesse and excel-
lencye of Christen princes auctoritie and power, the which of a
trewyth is moste high, for he hathe power and charge generally
over all, as well busshopes and prestes as other. The busshopes
and prestes haue charge of sowles within ther awne cures, power
to ministre sacramentes and to teache the worde of God, to the
which worde of God christen princes knowledge theym selfe
subiecte. And in case the busshopes be negligent, it is the christen
princes office to se theym doo ther dutie.

1551

Articles, wherunto Wylliam Phelps, Pastor and Curate of Ceciter,
upon good advisement and deliberation after better knoivledg geven
by Gods grace and goodnes unto him, hath subscribed, consented
and aggreed, willingly without force, compulsion, and all maner
of impulsion; and is willing and desirous to set forth the same to
his parishioners, for the better edifying of them, and declaration of
his new aggreement to Gods verite and holy word.

293

APPENDIX

Morrice MSS. L. No. 3, f. 778. Printed, Strype, Cranmer,
(Oxford, 1840) II, 902. from Foxe's MSS.

First, That the holy word of God doth acknowledg, confess,
maintaine, avouch, hold and defend, that in the holy Sacrament
and Communion of Christs precious body and bloud, the very
substance, matter, nature and condition of bread and wine, do
remain after the words (as they be commonly called) of Consecra
tion, as verily and truly as they were in substance and matter bread
and wine before: Although that the use of the bread and wine in
the Sacrament be changed. For whereas before it was common
bread and common wine, now by virtue of Gods word it is made
the Sacrament of the precious body and bloud of Christ, and a seal,
confirmation, and augmentation of Gods mercy and gracious
promise to al men, that receive it in the faith of Jesus Christ, with
hatred of sin, and intent, purpose and mind to live always a
vertuous life. And that is the very Transubstantiation and change,
that God delighteth in, in the use of the Sacraments, most, that we
should earnestly and from the bottome of our hearts, be converted
into Christ, and Christs holy commandments, to live a christen
life, and to dy from sin, as he gave us example, both by his life and
doctrin; and meaneth not, that the bread and wine should in sub
stance be turned or converted into the substance of his body and
bloud, or that the substance of the bread should be taken away, and
in the place thereof to be the substance, matter and corporal
presence of Christs corporal holy, humane and natural body.

ITEM, That the same holy word of God doth confess, hold,
defend, acknowledg, and maintain, that the very natural, substan
tial, real and corporal body of Christ, concerning his humanity, is
only and soly in heaven, and not in the Sacrament and Communion
of his precious body and bloud. But whosoever worthily with true
repentance, and lively faith in the promise of God, receiveth that
holy Sacrament, receiveth Sacramentally by faith al the mercies,
riches, merits and deservings, that Christ hath deserved and paid
for, in his holy bloud and passion. And that is to eat Christ and
to drink Christ in the holy Sacrament, to confirm and seal Sacra
mentally, in our Souls, Gods promises of eternal Salvation: that
Christ deserved for us, not in, or by, his body eaten, but by, and

294

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

for, his body slain and killed upon the cross for our sinns: as S.
Paul saith Col. 1. Eph. 1. 3 Ebru. 2. 7, 8, 9, 10.

As for eating of his tiesh, and drinking of his bloud, really,
corporally, materially and substantially, it is but a carnal and gross
opinion of man, besides and contrary to the word of God, and the
articles of our faith, and christen religion: that affirmeth his
corporal departure from thearth, placeth it in heaven above at the
right hand of God the father Almighty, and keepeth, retaineth,
holdeth and preserveth the same corporal body of Christ there, til
the general day of judgment, as the word declareth : ' ' From thence
he shal come to judge the quick and the dead. ' '

And that heretofore I have been in the contrary opinion, and
believed my self, and also have taught other to believe the same,
that there remained no substance of bread and wine in the Sacra
ment, but the very self same body and bloud of Christ Jesu, that
was born of the blessed Virgin Mary, and hanged upon the Cross,
I am with al my heart sorry for mine error, and false opinion,
detesting and forsaking the same from the bottome of my heart,
and desire God most heartily in, and for, the merits of his dear
sons passion, to forgive me, and al them that have erred in the
same false opinion by and through my means: Praying them in
the tender compassion and great mercies of God, now to follow me
in truth, verite and singleness of Gods most true word, as they
were contented to follow me in error, superstition and blindness,
and be no more ashamed to turn to the truth, then they were ready
to be corrupted by falshood. If the holy Apostle S. Paul, and the
great Clerk, S. Augustine, with many mo Noble and vertuous
members of Christs church, were not ashamed to returne, acknowl
edge, and confess, their error and evil opinions ; what am I, miser
able creature of the world, inferior unto them both in knowledg,
holines and learning, that should be ashamed to do the same?
Nay I do in this part thank God, and re Joyce from the bottome of
my heart, that God hath revealed unto me the truth of his word,
and geven me leave to live so long to acknowledg my fault, and
error : and do here before you protest, that from henceforth I will
with al diligence and labor, study to set forth this mine amended
knowledg, and reconciled truth, as long as I live, by the help of
God in the holy Ghost, through the merits of Jesus Christ, our only

295

APPENDIX

Mediator and Advocate. To whom be al honor forever and ever,
Amen.

Subscribed and confirmed 29 of April 1551,

in the presence of John Bp. of Gloucester,

and divers other ther present.

1551

An assertion and defence of the true knowledge and use of the
Sacrament of Christs pretious body and bloud made by John
Wynter, Master of Arte, Parson of Stawnton and professed by him
in the Cathedrall Church of Gloucester, viii Novembris, Anno Dni.
1551.

(Morrice MSS. L. No. Ill, f. 78-9)

Forasmuch as there is nothing more acceptable, nor like unto
God than verity and truth, and that of all things chiefly truth is
required to be in man. and specially in religion, and faith, which
be the instruments, and meanes that he useth to apply his mercies
and grace to every of his Elected Children, and that nothing is, or
may be more injurious unto God, nor hurtfull unto man as false
Religion, and corrupt faith; ffor the assertion and defence of the
one, and deniall and subversion of the other, I do with all my
heart, being thoroughly perswaded upon good knowledge, long and
advised deliberation, without Compulsion, fear and dread for the
truth sake, and contentation of my own Conscience protest, holde,
maintaine, and defend that in the holy Sacrament of Christs
precious body and bloud, there is no alteration of the substance of
bread and wine, but they both remaine in substance very bread and
very wine as well after the words (as they be called) of Consecration,
as verily as they were bread and wine in substance before. And that
in the same Sacrament by no maner of meanes reasons or wayes the
body and bloud of Christ is Carnally bodily really or substantially
present but only spiritually to the soule and eye of faith, that is to
say as verily as Corporall bread and wine is present to the senses
of the outward man being upon the Earth, even so is the body of
Christ present to the minde and faith of man which is then errected
up into heaven. And even as the bread and wine, with the word
of God and Christs institution is broken, and entereth into the

296

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

outward man presently, even so is the body of Christ rente and
torne for the remission of sin to the consideration of faith presently.
As Christ doth say this is my body which is given for you, for
even as the bread is a Sacrament of his body, and the wine of his
bloud, so is the breaking of it a Sacrament of the death of his
body, and the Wine received according unto Christs institution, a
Sacrament of his pretious bloud shedden, yet not two Sacraments,
but one Sacrament as his body and the paines thereof was not two
bodyes but one body. As in the breaking of the bread in the Sacra
ment after the wordes of Christ, which be these : That is given for
you, there is no sensible feeling or painefull passion, nor killing
againe of Christs pretious body, no more is there in the bread, or
under the bread of the Sacrament after the words which be these,
This is my body, any naturall, Corporall, or substanciall presence
of the body that dyed, or of the bloud that was shed but that the
bread and wine remaining in their substance, be Sacraments of
Christs body and bloud, which be present unto the eyes Spiritually
of faith, which is in the receiver, and not Substantially nor Cor
porally in the elements of bread and wine. And whosoever be of
the contrary opinion, and would defend transubstantiation or cor
poral! presence, I do condemne his faith as an errour, and opinion
contrary to the expresse word of God. And will with all my learn
ing, wit, dilligence and study daily, improue, confute, speake
against, and utterly subvert unto the uttermost of my power, as
God helpe me in the bloud of Christ, to whome with the Holy Ghost
be laud and praise world without end, so be it. God Saue the
King.

Form of Subscription and Submission Under Philip and Mary

(Harleian MSS. 425 f. 3, Copy.)

Because our savioure Christe at his laste supper toke bread and
when he had gyuen thankes he brake yt and Geue yt to his Disci
ples and said Take eatte this is my body wch is Gyuen for yow, thys
do in the Remembrance, therefore according to the wordes of our
sauioure Jesus Christe we do beleue the sacrament to be Christes
body; and lykewyse he tooke the Cuppe gaue thankes and gaue yt
unto his Disciples And he said this is my blud of the newe testament

297

APPENDIX

wch is shede for many therfore lykewyse we do beleue that yt is
the blude of Christe according as Christes Churche dothe mynister
the Same unto the whollye Catholyke Churche of Christe, we do in
this like and in all other maters Submitte ourselues promyssyng
therin to liue as yt becometh ffaythfull Subiectes unto our
moste gracious Kyng and Quene and unto the other superyors
powers bothe spirituall and temporall Accordyng to .oure bounden
Duetty.

(Signed by twenty-three names, some of them women's.)

1559
Form of Subscription Used in Elizabeth's First Visitation

(The original paper signed by many of the clergy of the realm
is in Lambeth MSS. Carta Miscellanea XIII, f. 57 and following.
The date is almost certainly September, 1559. This seems to have
been the form to which the Commission in partibus borealibus
demanded subscription. Printed inaccurately in Strype, Annals,
I, pt. i, 255.)

Wee do confesse and acknowledge the Restorying agayn of the
aunciente lurisdiccon over the state ecclesiasticall and spirituall of
this Realme of Ynglande and the abolishing of all forayn power
repugnante to the same according to an acte therof made in the
late parliamente begonne at Westm. the xxiij daye of January in
the firste yere of the Reigne of our soueraigne Lady Quene Eliza
beth, and ther contynuyng and kepte to the eighte of Maye then
next ensuynge; Thadmynystracion of the sacramentes, th'use and
ordre of the divyne sarvice in maner and forme as it is set furthe
in the Booke comonly callid the boke of comon prayer etc established
by the same acte And thorders and Rules conteyned in the Iniunc-
tions geven by the Queues maiestie and exhibited in this presente
vysitacion to be accordyng to the true woorde of god and Agreable
withe the doctryne and use of the Prymatyue and Apostolik
ehurche. In wytnes wherof wee haue hereunto subscribed our
names.1

1 Most men merely signed their scripsi." The later subscriptions in

names, especially the city clergy but London used the form "propria manu

many of the country clergy signed subscripsi. ' '
their names and added "volens sub-

298

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

1559 (?)
The Othe for the Clergye

(Lambeth MSS. Carta Miscellanea XIII f. 58.)

You shall sweare that you shalbe ffaigthfull and obedient unto
the Quenes Maiestie, her heires and successors, and to the uttermost
of your power understanding and learning, you shall mainteign
and set furth all statutes and lawes, and the religion received by
her Grace or her heires and successours, and the Iniunctions at this
present time exhibited by her Grace her Officers or Commissioners :
and that you shall make true presentment1 of all such thinges as
are to be presented in this visitacon : so helpe you god and by the
contentes of this booke.

1559

"Interpretations and further Considerations" attached to the
Queen's Injunctions of 1559 ~by the Archbishop and Bishops.

(Corpus Christi College MSS. (Cambridge,), vol. 106, f. 423-424.
Printed in Cardwell's Annals, I, 240-242.2)

S. Scriptura in se continet omnem doctrinam pietatis: ex qua
sufficienter et error omnis convinci possit et veritas stabiliri.

Symbolum Nicenum, Athanasii, et quod communiter Apostolorum
dicitur, continet brevissime articulos fidei nostrae sparsim in scrip-
turis ostensos. Qui istis non crediderint inter veros catholicos non
sunt recipiendi.

Ecclesia Christi est, in qua purum Dei verbum praedicatur, et
sacramenta juxta Christi ordinationem administrantur : et in qua
elavium authoritas retinetur.

1 Perhaps this form was the one W. M. Kennedy, in The Interpreta-
tendered to the churchwardens and tions of the Bishops and their In-
sidesmen as the other was tendered fluence on Elizabethan Episcopal Pol
io the clergy proper. icy. Alcuin Club Tracts, VIII,

2 There are three copies of this doc- (1908). The Editor has modernised
ument, the Corpus Christi MSS. 106, the spelling, confesses that he has
Petyt MSS. 538. 38, f. 223: and altered the punctuation and that he
Petyt MSS. 538. 47, f. 545. The dif- has not collated all the differences,
ferences in reading are slight and Nor do his comments add anything
the Corpus Christi seems to be the to our previous knowledge.

best. All three have been printed by

299

APPENDIX

Quaevis ecclesia particular-is authoritatem instituendi, mutandi,
et abrogandi ceremonias et ritus ecclesiasticos habet: modo ad
decorem, ordinem, et aedificationem fiat. . . . Justificatio ex sola
fide est certissima doctrina Christianorum.

Elizabetha regina Angliae est unicus et supremus gubernator
hujus regni et omnium dominiorum et regionum suarum quarum-
cunque tarn in rebus et causis ecclesiastic^ quam temporalibus.
Verbum Dei non prohibet foeminarum regimen : cui obediendum
est juxta ordinationem Dei.

Romanus pontifex nullam habet jurisdictionem in hoc regno, nee
alia quaecumque potestas extranea. . . .

Haec omnia vera esse et publice docenda profitemur, eaque juxta
datam nobis facultatem et eruditionem tuebimur et docebimus.
Hancque nostram confessionem manuum nostrarum subscriptioni-
bus testificamur, contrariamque doctrinam abolendam esse judica-
mus, et detestamur.

1559

A declaration of certain principal articles of religion to be read
by the said parsons, vicars, and curates at their possession taking,
or first entry into their cures, and also after that, yearly at two
several times.

(Cardwell, Annals, I, 263-267. A contemporary broad-sheet is in
Corpus Christi MSS. 106, f. 422.)

FORASMUCH as it appertaineth to all Christian men, but espe
cially to the ministers and the pastors of the church being teachers
and instructors of others, to be ready to give a reason of their
faith, when they shall be thereunto required: I, for my part, now
appointed your parson, vicar, or curate, having before my eyes the
fear of God, and the testimony of my conscience, do acknowledge
for myself and require you to assent to the same :

I. That there is but one living and true God of infinite power,
wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things ; and
that in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one sub
stance, of equal power and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost.

II. I believe also, whatsoever is contained in the holy canonical

300

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

scriptures, in the which scriptures are contained all things necessary
to salvation, by the which also all errors and heresies may suffi
ciently be reproved and convicted, and all doctrine and articles
necessary to salvation established. I do also most firmly believe
and confess all the articles contained in the three Creeds, the Nicene
Creed, Athanasius' Creed, and our common Creed called the
Apostles' Creed; for these do briefly contain the principal articles
of our faith, which are at large set forth in the holy scriptures.

III. I do acknowledge also that church to be the spouse of
Christ, wherein the word of God is truly taught, the sacraments
orderly ministered according to Christ 's institution and the author
ity of the keys duly used; and that every such particular church
hath authority to institute, to change, clean to put away cere
monies, and other ecclesiastical rites, as they be superfluous, or to
be abused, and to constitute other making more to seemliness, to
order, or edification.

IV. Moreover I confess that it is not lawful for any man to
take upon him any office or ministry, either ecclesiastical or secular,
but such only as are lawfully thereunto called by their high author
ities according to the ordinances of this realm.

V. Furthermore I do acknowledge the queen's majesty's preroga
tive and superiority of government of all estates and in all causes
as well ecclesiastical as temporal, within this realm, and other her
dominions and countries, to be agreeable to God's word, and of
right to appertain to her highness, in such sort, as is in the late act
of parliament expressed, and sithence by her majesty's injunctions
declared and expounded.

VI. Moreover touching the Bishop of Rome, I do acknowledge
and confess, that by the Scriptures and Word of God he hath no
more authority than other bishops have in their provinces and
dioceses : and therefore the power, which he now challengeth that is,
to be the supreme head of the universal church of Christ, and to
be above all emperors, kings, and princes, is an usurped power,
contrary to the scriptures and word of God, and contrary to the
example of the primitive church, and therefore is for most just
causes taken away and abolished in this realm.

VII. Furthermore I do grant and confess, that the book of
common prayer and administration of the holy sacraments, set forth
by the authority of parliament, is agreeable to the scriptures, and

301

APPENDIX

that it is catholic, apostolic, and most for the advancing of God's
glory, and the edifying of God's people, for that it is in a tongue,
that may be understood of the people, and also for the doctrine and
form of ministration contained in the same.

VIII. And although in the administration of baptism there is
neither exorcism, oil, salt, spittle, or hallowing of the water now
used, and for that they were of late years abused and esteemed
necessary, where they pertain not to the substance and necessity
of the sacrament, that they be reasonably abolished, and yet the
sacrament full and perfectly ministered to all intents and purposes,
agreeable to the institution of our Saviour Christ.

IX. Moreover, I do not only acknowledge that private masses
were never used amongst the fathers of the primitive church, I
mean public ministration and receiving of the sacrament by the
priest alone, without a just number of communicants, according
to Christs saying, "Take ye and eat ye," etc, but also, that the
doctrine, that maintaineth the mass to be a propitiatory sacrifice
for the quick and the dead, and a mean to deliver souls out of
purgatory, is neither agreeable to Christ's ordinance, nor grounded
upon doctrine apostolic, but contrarywise most ungodly and most
injurious to the precious redemption of our Saviour Christ, and
his only sufficient sacrifice offered once forever upon the altar of
the cross.

X. I am of that mind also, that the holy communion or sacra
ment of the body and blood of Christ, for the due obedience to
Christ's institution, and to express the virtue of the same, ought to
be ministered unto the people under both kinds. . . . Last of all,
as I do utterly disallow the extolling of images, relics, and feigned
miracles, . . . wandering on pilgrimages, setting up of candles,
praying upon beads, and such like superstition ... so do I exhort
all men to the obedience of God's law. . . .

These things above rehearsed, though they be appointed by
common order, yet I do without all compulsion, with freedom of
mind and conscience, from the bottom of my heart, and upon most
sure persuasion, acknowledge to be true and agreeable to God's
word ; and therefore I exhort you all of whom I have cure, heartily
and obediently to embrace and receive the same, that we all joining
together in unity of spirit, faith and charity, may also at length be
joined together in the kingdom of God, and that through the merits

302

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father
and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and empire now and forever. Amen.

1564

Protestations to be Made, Promised, and Subscribed by Them That

Shall Hereafter Bee Admitted to Any Office, Roome, or Cure

in Any Churche, or Other Place Ecclesiasticall

(Annexed to Parker's Advertisements. Printed in Cardwell's
Annals, I, 330-331. The form of 1561 was almost exactlv the same
see id., 302.)

Inprimis, I shall not preache or publiquely interprete, but onely
reade that whiche is appointed by publique authoritye, without
special licence of the bysshope under his seale. I shall reade the
service appointed playnly, distinctly, and audibly, that all the
people may heare and understande.

I shall keepe the register booke accordinge to the queenes majesties
injunctions.

I shall use sobrietie in apparrel, and specially in the churche at
common prayers, according to order appointed.
I shall move the parishioners to quiet and concorde, and not geve
them cause of offence, and shall helpe to reconcile them, whiche be
at variaunce, to my uttermoste power.

I shall reade daylie at the leaste one chapter of the Old Testament,
and another of the Newe, with good advisement to thincrease of my
knowledge.

I do also faithfully promise in my person to use and exercise my
office and place to the honour of God, to the quiet of the queenes
subjects within my charge, in truth, concorde, and unitye. And
also to observe, kepe, and mentayne suche order and uniformity in
all external policye, rites and ceremonies of the Church, as by the
lawes good usages and orders are already well provided and estab
lished.

I shall not openlye intermeddle with any artificers occupations, as
covetously to seke gayne thereby, havinge in ecclesiastical lyvinge
to the somme of 20 nobles or above by yere.

303

APPENDIX

1567
Form Used in the Diocese of Ely

(Diocesan Registry, Ely MS. Book labelled, "Dean and Chapter
1567." In this are all the other forms quoted here.)

We whose names are hereafter written do promise by vertu of our
obedience to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie that we will ffrom
hensforthe dulye trulie and ffaithfullie obserue and kepe all and
singular the contentes in the booke of comon prayer and the
Queenes Maiesties Injunctions prescribed and sett forthe by hir
highnes aucthoritie aswell concerninge our owne persons as also
concerninge the orders, Rightes and Ceremonies to be used and
obserued in the Celebration of the Devine seruice and instruction
of goddes holye Sacramentes accordinge to the trew meaninge of
the same Iniunctions without any Innovation or Alteracon. ' '

(Signed by 42 clergymen. Original paper.)

1571
Form Used in the Diocese of Ely

(Diocesan Registry, Ely.)

27 Aug. 1571. Articles to be subscribed by priests of Ely. Imprimis

that the booke of publique prayer is suche as contaynethe nothinge

in yt repugnynge or contrarie to the worde of God.

Item, that the apparrell ordeyned by law and commended by the

prince to the ecclesiasticall ministers ys not wicked but tollerable

and to be used obedientlie for order and cumlines only.

Item, that the Articles of sincere and true religion agreed uppon in

the last convocacion set forth by the quenes Maiesties assent and

established allso by parliament conteyne most godlie and holsum

doctryne agreeable unto Gods hollye worde.

(Original paper, signed by 74 men.)

1573
Form Used in the Diocese of London

(Petyt MSS in the Inner Temple, London. 538. 47. f. 505.)

First that the Booke comonly called the Booke of Common praier
for the Churche of Englande authorized by Parliament and all

304

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

and every the contents therin be such as are not repugnante to the
worde of God.

That the maner and order appoynted by publique authoritie aboute
the administracon of the sacramentes and comon praiers, and that
the Apparell by sufficient authoritie apoynted for the mynisters
within the Churche of Englande be not wicked nor agaynst the
worde of God but tollerable : and beinge Comanded for order and
obedience sake are to be used. That the articles of religion whiche
onlie concerne the Confession of the true Christian ffaithe and the
Doctrine of the Sacramentes comprised in a booke imprynted,
intituled Articles wherupon it was agreed by the Archbushopps
and Busshops of Bothe Prouinces and the whole Clergie in the
Conuocation holden at London in the yere of oure Lorde god, 1562
according to the Computacon of the Churche of Englande, and
everye of them, conteyne true and godlie Christian Doctrine.

(Original paper, Six signatures.)

(Other copies on f. 504, 512, and 519., the latter adding as follows,)
We whose names are underwritten do acknowledge the C ententes
of theis above written Articles to be true, and further doe promise
to submitt and conforme ourselves agreable unto the same, which
our submission and promise of Conformitie, we testifie by the sub
scribing of our names with our owne handes.

1573

A Submission to Publick Order and Rites Set Down in PuUick
Prayer and Administration of Sacraments (9 December}

(Morrice MSS. B, II, f. 97.)

1 I acknowledge the Booke of Articles agreed upon by the clergy
of this Realme in a Synode holden A° Dni. 1563 and confirmed by
the Queenes Maiestie to be sound and according to the word of God.

2 The Queenes Maiestie is the chief Gouvernour nex under
Christ of this Church of England, as well in ecclesiasticall as in
Civill Causes.

3. I acknowledge that in the booke of Common Prayer there is
nothing evill or repugnant to the word of God, but that it may be
well used in this our Christian Church of England.

305

APPENDIX

4 I acknowledge that as the publick preaching of the word in
this Church of England is sound and sincere, so the publick order
of Administration of Sacraments is consonant to the word of God.

And whereas I have in publick prayer and Administration of
Sacr: neglected and omitted the Order by publick authority set
down, following mine own fantasie in altering adding and omitting
of the same not using such Rites as by Law and Order are appointed,
I acknowledge my fault therein, and am sory for it, and humbly
pray pardon for that disorder. And here I do submit myselfe to
Order and Rites set downe. And I doe promise that I will from
hence forth in publick prayer and administration of the Sacr: use
and observe the same, the which thing I do presently and willingly
testifie with the subscription of mine own hand.1

1573
Forms of Submission in Northamptonshire

(Morrice MSS. C. 198.)
FORMA OBJURATIONIS

In which forma obiurationis they required not to tollerate but by
oath and subscribing to affirme that all things in it are agreeable to
the word of God. wherein we should have allowed the Baptisme of
women. Secondly, they required of us with the like oath and sub
scription, that we should never hereafter either in publick or
private speech use any words against any thing contained in the
said Booke. And in which forma promissionis, they required first
as in the second Article in forma Abjurationis. Second we should
with subscription have allowed the booke set forth for Ordaining
of Ministers and Deacons, which besides that we did never see it, it
seemeth by that meanes have allowed those ministers which are not
able to preach.

FORMA PROMISSIONIS

I, A. B. Do promise before you mine Ordinary that I will hence
forth (so long as by Law and lawfull Iniunctions of this Realme I

i Except for the last clause begin- fered by individuals and differing

ning "And whereas," this form is somewhat from these given here, are

verbatim that agreed to by Mr. Der- in Morrice MSS. C, f. 200, 201, 285,

ing. December 16, 1573. (Morrice 286, 324, 325, 359, 360-368.
MSS. A, f. 117.) Other forms of-

306

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

shall be bound to do it) use the Service and Common Prayer, and
Administ : of the Sacr. in my Church and parish of A. or elsewhere
I shall hereafter serve in any Cure in all points to my power accord
ing to the Rites, Order, Form, and Ceremonies prescribed in the
booke of Common Prayer Authorized by an Act of Parliament in
the first year of the Queenes Majesties Reigne. And that I will not
hereafter preach or speak any thing tending or sounding to the
Derogation or Deprauing of the said Booke, or any point or parcell
thereof remaining, authorized by the Lawes and Statutes of this
Realme. Protesting further that the Booke of Consecration of
Archbpps and Bps and of the Ordering of Ministers and Deacons
lately set forth in the time of K. Edward the sixth and confirmed
by the authority of Parliament, doth containe in it all things
necessary for such consecration and Ordering, having in it nothing
that is either superstitious or ungodly to my Judgement. And
therefore that they which be Consecrated and Ordered according to
that same Booke be duely, Orderly and Lawfully ordained and
Consecrated. And that I do acknowledge my duty and obedience
to mine Diocesan and Ordinary, as to a lawfull Magistrate under
the Queenes Majesty so far forth as the Lawes and Statutes do
require which obedience I do promise according as the Lawes shall
bind me to performe, for testimony hereof I do subscribe my name
hereunto.

157
Form Used in the Diocese of Ely

(Diocesan Registry, Ely. Original, signed.)

Ego, Richardus Bancrofte, admittendus per Reuerendum in Christo
patrem Rich, diuina prouidentia Elies: episcopum ad rectoriam
de Teversham in presentia dicti reuerendi patris constitutus: sub
scribe omnibus articulis de quibus convenit inter Archiepiscopos et
episcopos huius regni Angliae in convocatione etc., 1562, hac mea
subscriptione consensum et assensum significans 24 Martii, Anno
domini secundum computacionem ecclesiae Anglicanae 1575 atque
etiam articulis in titulo huius subscriptionis me essent (sic) me
testor presentibus.

per me Richardus Bancrofte.
307

APPENDIX

1579
Form Used in the Diocese of Ely

(Diocesan Registry, Ely.)

Ego, Samuel Fleming admittendus per reuerendum in Christo patrem
et Dominum Richardum prouidentia diuina Eliensem episcopum
ad praedicandum et expondendum verbum dei infra diocesim Elien
sem in praesentia dicti Reuerendi patris constitutus agnosco nihil
contineri in libro qui inscribuntur the booke of Comon Prayer, etc.,
quod repugnet verbo dei omnesque et singulos articulos de quibus
conuenit inter Archiepiscopos et episcopos istius regni Angliae etc,
in convocatione etc. 1562 regiaque autoritate confirmatos veram et
sinceram religionem continere. qua propter hac mea subscriptione
assensum et consensum meum eisdem significo et declare. Feb.
1579.

per me Samuel Fleming.

158 3—4

Whit gift's Three Articles

"Articles touching preachers and other orders for the Church"
Article VI. (Printed in Cardwell's Annals, I, 468.)

That none be permitted to preach, reade, catechise, minister the
sacraments or to execute any other ecclesiasticall function, by what
authority soever he be admitted thereunto, unless he consent and
subscribe to these articles following, before the ordinary of the
diocese, wherin he preacheth, readeth, catechiseth, or ministreth
the sacraments, videlicet :

I. That her majestic, under God, hath and ought to have the sover-
aigntie and rule over all manner of persons born1 within her
realmes, dominions, and countries, of what estate, either ecclesias
tical, or temporal soever they be : and that no2 foreign power, pre
late, state, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction,
power, superioritie, preeminence, or authoritie ecclesiastical or

i The original paper subscribed in XIII, f . 59. It omits here the word
the diocese of London in 1586 is in "born."
Lambeth MSS. Carta Miscellanea, 2 Adds " other " here.

308

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

spiritual, within her majesties said realmes, dominions, and coun
tries.

II. That the book of common prayer, and of ordering bushops,
prestes, and deacons, conteyneth nothing in it contrary to the word
of God, and that the same may lawfully be used and that he him
self1 will use the forme of the said book prescribed in public
prayer, and administration of the sacraments and none other.

III. That he2 alloweth the book of articles of religion, agreed
upon by the archbushops and bushops of both provinces, 'and the
whole clergy in the convocation holden at London in the yere of
our Lord God M. D. LXIL and set forth by her majesties author
ity, and that he believeth3 all the articles therin conteyned to
be agreable to the word of God.

1604
Canon XXXVI

Subscription required of such as are to be made Ministers

No person shall hereafter be received into the ministry, nor either
by institution or collation admitted to any ecclesiastical living,
nor suffered to preach, to catechize, or to be a lecturer or reader
of divinity in either university or in any cathedral or collegiate
church, city, or market-town, parish-church, chapel, or in any
other place within this realm, except he be licensed either by the
archbishop, or by the bishop of the diocese, where he is to be
placed, under their hands and seals, or by one of the two uni
versities under their seal likewise; and except he shall first sub
scribe to these three articles following, in such manner and sort as
we have here appointed.

I. That the king's majesty, under God, is the only supreme gov
ernor of this realm, and of all other his highness 's dominions
and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or
causes, as temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate,
state, or potentate hath, or ought to have any jurisdiction, power,'

do^bscr'be*"'"1 readS' "JOW Wh° 3 London form reads, "yow do be-

2 London form reads, ' ' yow.

309

APPENDIX

superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual,
within his majesty's said realms, dominions, and countries.

II. That the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering of bish
ops, priests, and deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the
word of God, and that it may lawfully so be used; and that he
himself will use the form in the said book prescribed, in public
prayer, and administration of the sacraments, and none other.

III. That he alloweth the Book of Articles of Religion agreed
upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces and the
whole clergy in the convocation holden at London in the year of
our Lord God one thousand five hundred sixty and two, and that
he acknowledged all and every the articles therein contained,
being in number nine and thirty, besides the ratification, to be
agreeable to the word of God.

To these three articles whosoever will subscribe, he shall for the
avoiding of ambiguities, subscribe in this order and form of
words, setting down both his Christian and surname, viz. "I,
N. N. do willingly and ex animo subscribe to these three articles
above mentioned and to all things that are contained in them."
And if any bishop shall ordain, admit, or license any, as is afore
said, except he first have subscribed in manner and form as here
we have appointed, he shall be suspended from giving of orders
and licenses to preach, for the space of twelve months. But if
either of the universities shall offend therein, we leave them to
the danger of the law, and his majesty's censure.

THE PRECEDENT FOR THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE

1 5 8 1 ( ? )
The Oath Tendered to Campion and Others

(Lansdowne MSS. 155, f. 87.)

I acknowledge that our soueraigne Ladie Queene Elizabeth
nowe raigning in England is the true and lawfull Queene of this
Realme and whilest she liveth, ought to possesse and enioy the
Crowne and kingly gouernance therof, and I and all other of
the nation of England are her liege subiectes, and owe and shall
owe to beare to her the allegiaunce and obedience of subiectes not-

310

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

withstanding any acte or sentence yt any Pope or other person
Church or bodie hath done or giuen, or can doe or giue. And
that the pretended excommunication, sentence or Bull of Pius the
Vth declaring her Maiestie an heretique and depriued of her
Crowne, and her subiectes dischardged of their allegeaunce to hir,
and euery like iudgment or sentence that hath bene, shall or may
be had by anie Pope or other, is and shall be false and erronious
and of noe validitie toward her Maiestie or her subiectes, and
that all risinges and taking of armes and persuasions thereunto
against her Maiestie by the late rebbells in the North, or Saunders,
and any other in Ireland, or any other her subiectes were and
be unlawfull and ungodlie doinges, and damnable treasons, not
withstanding any warrant, excommunication, bull, comaundement,
absolution or other matter whatsoeuer had or pretended or that
may be had from or by any Pope or other body or person, or any
regard or pretence of any Church called Catholique or any other
matter whatsoeuer.

1593

The Oath of Submission
(In the Statute of 35 Eliz. c. 1. sect, iii)

I, A. B. do humbly confess and acknowledge, That I have
grievously offended God in contemning her Majesty's godly and
lawful government and Authority, by absenting myself from
Church, and from hearing Divine Service, contrary to the godly
Laws and Statutes of this realm, and in using and frequenting
disordered and unlawful Conventicles and Assemblies, under Pre
tence and Colour of Exercise of Religion : And I am heartily
sorry for the same, and do acknowledge and testify in my Con
science, That no other Person hath or ought to have any power
or Authority over her Majesty: and I do promise and protest
without any Dissimulation, or any Colour or Means of any Dis
pensation, That from henceforth I will from Time to Time obey
and perform her Majesty's Laws and Statutes, in repairing to the
Church and hearing Divine Service, and do my uttermost endeavour
to maintain and defend the same.

311

APPENDIX

1 6 0 2 ( « )

A forme of submission exhibited to her Matie of Englande by the
pryestes and Catholiques of the same nation

(Petyt MSS. 54, f. 392. Printed in The Archpriest Controversy,
II, p. 246. We cannot be certain whether this and the following
form precede or follow that of January 31, 1602-3.)

We English pryestes and other Catholiques of England prom
ise, protest and sweare in the presence and handes of, etc., that
we are and euer wilbe most humble subiectes and servauntes of
Quene Elizabeth, our soueraigne, redye to render her al due
obedience and fidelitye, and we doe and euer shal acknowledge
her for our soueraigne and mystres. And we protest and sweare
lykewise that we wyll houlde no Intellicence with eny prince,
potentate or other estate or particuler person whatsoeuer in prae-
iudice of the dignitye, authoritye, or person Royal of her Matie or
her estate.

1602 (1)
An oath of Allegeance thowght vpon by some Catholickes

(Petyt MSS. 38, f. 168. Printed in Archpriest Controversy, II,
p. 247.)

I, A. B. doe acknowledge in my conscience and confesse vn-
feynedly that the Quenes most excellent Matie Q: Elizabeth, now
in possession of the Crowne of this Realme, is the true vndowbted
and lawfull Quene of England and Ireland: and that accordingly
all the people and subiectes of England and Ireland, of what de
gree or callinge so ever they be, ought and are bound by the word
of God faithfully to serve, honor, and obey her Highnes, as theyr
onlye true vndoubted and lawfull soveraigne Quene; notwith-
standinge any forayne or domesticall power, preheminence or
authoritye, or any doctrine, opinion or writinge, that eyther hath
allready or that shall hereafter affirme, comaund or teach the con-
trarye. And furthermore albeyt the B : of Rome for the tyme
beinge doe or shall hereafter attempt (eyther by any bull or sen
tence made, given, or to be made, given or published by himselfe
or in his owne name, or by force of any former bull or sentence

312

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

pretended to be allready made, given, denounced and published
by any of his predecessors) to pronounce, declare or publish, or
suffer to be denounced, declared or published, that her Maiestie
is, or ought to be, deprived of her kingdome, and so consequently
no true and lawfull Quene of England and Ireland; and that the
subiectes and people of these lands, are discharged of theyr allegi
ance, and obedience vnto her highnes ; and in like manner, although
the sayd B : of Rome or any other by his apointment or authority or
by the apointment or authority of any other, shall invade eyther
the Realme of England or Ireland, or shall attempte by force of
Armes, to overthrow the present estate of this1 kingdom, or of the
religion now professed and established by her Maiesties lawes and
ordinances whether it be vnder colour of the restitution of the
Romish religion, or vnder what other pretence so ever it be: yet
notwithstandinge I doe acknowledge myselfe bound in my con
science, to take part with her Maiestie against all such persons
and theyr forces. And therfore I doe vnfeynedly professe and
affirme, that I will ever be redye, with my bodye and goodes, to
withstande to myne uttermost power and abilitye any such forcible
and violent attemptes with the like faith and true allegiance
that becometh all dutifull and faithfull subiectes of any other
Christian prince to withstande any enemye that shall seeke by
force of Armes, of malice and withowt iust cause, to invade or
assalt any of theyr possessions, dominyons or Contreyes. And all
these pointes I acknowledge, confesse, affirme, and professe, so
helpe me God.

1602-3
Form of Subscription Offered Bancroft by the Secular Priests

(Harleian MSS. 360, f. 30. Original, Docketed by Bancroft
"This was delyvered to me by the priestes." Copy in S. P. Dom.
Eliz. 287, n. 14. Two drafts of it are in Petyt MSS. 54, f. 233,
and 54, f. 396. Printed in Tierney's Dodd's Church History, III, p.
clxxxviii from a MS. at Stonyhurst.)

Whereas it hath pleased our dread soveraigne to take notice
of the faith and loyalty of us her naturall borne subiectes, secular
priestes : and of her princely clemency hath given a sufficyent

iMr. Law reads "Ms" instead of "this."
313

APPENDIX

earnest of some mercifull favor towardes us, being all subiect
by the lawes of the Realme to death by our returne into our
contry, after our taking of the order of priesthood, since the first
yeare of her Majesty's raigne, and only demaundeth of us, for
this intended favour, an assurance of the sayd fidelity unto her
Majestys person, Crowne, estate and dignity: we whose names
are underwritten in most humble wise prostrate at her Majestys
feet doe acknowledge our selves infinitely bound unto her Ma
jesty therfore, and are most willing to give such assurance, and
satisfaction in this point, as any catholicke priestes can give unto
theyr soveraignes.

ffirst therfore we acknowledge and confesse the Queenes Ma-
jestie to have as full authority, power and soveraignty over us, and
over all the subiectes of the Realme, as any her Highnes prede
cessors ever had. And further we protest, that we are most will
ing, and redy to obey her in all cases and respectes, as farre forth,
as ever Christian priestes within this Realme, or in any other
Christian contry were bound by the law of god, and Christian
religion to obey theyr ternporall princes.

Secondly Whereas for these many yeares past diverse con-
spiracyes against her Majestys person and estate, and sondry
forceable attemptes for invading, and conquering her dominions
have been made, under (we know not what) pretences and intend-
ments of restoring catholicke religion by the sword, (a course
most strange in the world, and undertaken peculiarly and solely
against her Majestic, and her kingdomes among other princes
departed from the religion and obedyence of the See Apostol-
icke no lesse then she) by reason of which violent enterprises,
her Majestic (otherwise of singular clemency towards her
subiectes) hath been greatly moved to ordaine, and execute
severer lawes against the catholicks (which by reason of theyr unyon
with the Sea Apostolicke in faith and religion were easily
supposed to favor those conspiracy es and invasions) then
perhaps had ever been enacted, or thought upon, if such hostility
and warres had never been undertaken : we to assure her Majestic
of our faithfull loyalty also in this particular case sincerely pro
test and by this our publicke facte make knowen to all the
Christian world, that in these cases of conspiracyes and invasions,
which hereafter may be made by any forraine prince or potentate

314

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

for the disturbance or subversion of her Majestys state, and
Dominions, under the foresayd pretences and intendments : we
will according to the rules of Christian religion, defende our
prince and contry from all theyr violent assaultes and iniuryes :
and moreover we will, not only ourselves resiste them, as
inconvenyent meanes to induce catholicke religion into our
contry, but also earnestly perswade lay catholickes to doe the
same.

Thirdly if upon any such invasions, the pope shold excom
municate every one, that wold not forsake the foresayd defence
of her Majestic and the Realme, and take parte with such con
spirators, and invadors: in this case we doe thinke ourselves, and
the lay catholickes not bound in conscience to obey this censure,
but will defende our prince and contry.

And bicause nothing is more certaine then, that whilest we in-
devor to assure her Majestic of our dutifull affection and alle
giance by this our Christian and sincere protestation there will
not wante who will condemne and misconstrue our lawfull f acte :
yea and by many sinister suggestions and calumnyes discreditt our
doing with the Christian world but chiefly with the popes holines,
to the greatest preiudice and harme of our good names and persons,
that may be, oneles maturely we prevent theyr malice herein : We
most humbly beseech her Majestic, that in this our recognizing and
yealding Caesars due unto her, we may also by her gratious leave
be permitted (for avoyding obloquy and calumnyes) to make
knowen by like publicke acte, that by yealding her right unto her,
we departe from no bonde of that Christian duty which we owe to
our supreme spirituall pastor.

And therfore we acknowledge and confesse the Bishop of Rome
to be the successor of St. Peter in that Sea and to have as ample and
no more authority, or iurisdiction over us and other Christians, then
had that Apostle by the guifte and comission of Christ our
saviour: and that we will obey him so farre forth as we are
bound by the lawes of god to doe, and may stande with perfor
mance of our duty to our temporall prince in such sorte, as we
have before professed, ffor as we are most redy to spende our
blood in the defence of her Majestie and our contry: so we will
rather loose our lives then infringe the authority of Christes
catholicke church.

315

APPENDIX

1604
Oath Offered by the Priests

(S. P. Dom. Jac. I, VIII, n. 125.)

Nos presbeteri seculares et regulares aliique Catholic! Angli
iuramus promittimus et protestamur tanquam membra ciuilis et
politic! corporis hums Regni Angliaa quod Regem nostrum Jacobum
eius nominis primum solum et supremum mediatorem post Deum
huius ciuilis corporis caput agnoscimus sine ulla referentia aut
dependentia alterius cuiuscumque terrestris potestatis aut luris-
dictionis illique et successoribus suis omnem fidelitatem obedien-
tiam et subiectionem exhibebimus et authoritatem potestatem et
principatum aeque amplum sicut praedecessoribus suis Regibus
praadecessores nostri sacerdotes exhibuerunt.

Iuramus item et protestamur quod nee tempore quo sacris init-
iati fuimus nee alio quocumque tempore aut loco sacramento
aliquo nos unquam obstrinximus taliae obedientias aut submissione
externas alicui lurisdictioni quae irritum vacuum aut hypotheticum
possit reddere. hoc nortrum fidelitatis iuramentum ad?
eorum a quibus ordinati fuimus neque ad libitum illos posse dis-
pensare neque talem nos dispensationem accepturos. Iuramus in-
super et protestamur quod nullum unquam commercium intelli-
gentiam aut negotiation em vel antehac habuimus vel imposterum
habituri sumus cum principe aliquo praslato aut Monarcha siue
persona quacumque cuiuscumque loci aut ordinis domi vel foris
sub quocumque prastextu in praeiuditium damnum vel discrimen
regiae personse aut regnorum et dominorum suorum sed quod
semper omni fide et obsequio parati erimus etiam cum sanguinis
nostri effusione dictum nostrum Regem et successores suos defen-
dere, omnesque quibuscumque nos uiuere contigerit ad eandem
obsequii promptitudinem verbo et exemplo excitare et persuadere
contra omnes quascumque externas inuasiones et practicas aut
domesticas rebelliones aut conspirationes quaecumque sub quocum
que praetextu aut authoritate quacumque fuerint machinate aut
excitatae contra pacem personam, coronam et dignitatem Regis
nostri et domini et regnorum et dominorum suorum, Idque nos
facturos pollicemur non obstante quacumque excommunicatione
aut censura ecclesiastical in contrarium fulminata aut fulminanda,

316

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

aut idipsum nos omnes majestati suas subditos quibuscum nos
conuersari contigerit instructuros et persuasuros sanctissime pol-
licemur.

1604
A Proiecte of Articles to examyn papistes upon

(Petyt MSS. 538. 38, f. 186. Endorsed by Bancroft, "my
Draught, 1604.")

I am fully persuaded in mie conscience and doe stedfastly be-
leeue that the Bishop of Rome hath no lawfull intereste, right or
title, to the Crowne of Englande, either to possesse it himselfe or
to conferr it to anye other. And therfore whosoeuer being borne
in Englande, Scotlande or Irelande or in any other place actual-
lye in the possession of the Crowne of Englande, doth holde the
contrarye or doth affirme either by worde or writinge, that the
Pope hath any authoritie for anye cause or pretence whatsoeuer,
to bestowe the crowne of Englande, as he thinketh meete, or that
none can be a lawfull, absolute, and complete Kinge of England
except he haue first the popes approbation or consent thereunto :
I doe not only thinke, that herein he erreth, but doe likewise
iudge and condemne him to be a traitor both to the Crowne and
Kingdome of Englande.

2. I am fully persuaded in mie conscience and doe steadfastly
beleeue that James Stewart nowe in the possession of the crowne
of England, is trulye, iustlye and rightfullye both by the lawes
of god and of this Kingdome, the true lawfull and rightfull
Kinge thereof; notwithstandinge that he denieth the Pope's
Supremacie, and holdeth diuers pointes in religion to be true and
accordinge to the worde of god, which the Bishop of Rome and
those who are sworne to maintaine his supremacie, doe affirme to
be heresies; and accordingly I doe professe and confesse that I
myselfe nowe am and that I ought still to continue a true faith-
full and loyall subiect unto King James, notwithstandinge that
he holdeth and maintaineth the saide opinions in religion so by
the Pope condemned. And therfore whosoeuer beinge borne in
Englande, Scotlande or Irelande or in any other place actuallye
in the possession of the Crowne of Englande, doth either by worde,

317

APPENDIX

or writinge holde or maintaine that bicause James Stewart doth
beleeue and professe the saide pointes of religion to be true,
which the Pope condemneth for heresies, that therefore or for any
other cause, he is not de iure by the worde of god, and the lawes
of this kingdome, the true and rightfull Kinge thereof, and so
ought to be, or that he himselfe whosoeuer, borne as it is afore-
saide, is not, and so ought to continue, a true, dutifull, and loyall
subiecte unto Kinge James notwithstandinge that he beleeuethe
and mainteinethe the saide opinions in religion which the Pope
so condemneth: I doe not only thinke that therein he erreth, but
doe likewise iudge and condemne him to be a traitor both to the
kinge and to his naturall Countrye.

3. I am fully perswaded in my conscience and doe stedfastly
beleeue, that the Bishop of Rome hath no authoritie to absolue or
sett free either me or anye other person whatsoeuer, borne either
in Englande, Scotlande, or Irelande, or in any other place that
is actuallye in the possession of the Crowne of Englande, from our
duties, subiection and allegeance unto Kinge James nowe raign-
inge, notwithstandinge that he beleeueth and maintaineth diners
pointes in religion which the Pope and those who are sworne to
his Supremacie, doe affirme to be heresies. And therefore whoso
euer, borne as is aforesaide, shall either by worde or writinge
holde or mainteine the contrarye or shall affirme, that the Pope
hath any authoritie either ouer me, or ouer anie other so borne
to commaunde us, when he thinketh it expedient or behooffull for
the Church of Rome or in any respecte, to beare armes against
our Soveraigne Kinge James, or to doe ourselues or giue our
consentes to the contriuinge or doing of any acte or actes that
maye in any sorte tende to the preiudice, hinderance, or harte
of Kinge James now raigninge, his kingdome, his regall govern-
mente, or of his sacred person; because he mainteineth some
pointes in religion, which the Pope hath condemned for heresies,
or for any other cause or causes whatsoeuer; or that the Pope
hath anye lawfull authoritie to cure me or any other borne as is
aforesaide, for disobey inge suche his (the saide Pope's) com-
mandementes: I doe not only thinke, that therein he erreth, but
doe likewise iudge and condemne him to be a traitor to King
James and to his naturall Countrye.

4. I am fully perswaded in mye conscience and doe stedfastly

318

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

beleeue, that the doctrine of the Gospel is neither preiudiciall to
ciuill gouernment as Julian the Apostate and other wicked per
sons in the Primitiue Church did slaunder it ; nor that the em-
bracinge of it doth either ratine the false title of an usurpinge
Kinge, or the reiectinge of it preiudice the true interest which
any lawfull Kinge had to his kingdome, when first he receaued
it, nor that it bringeth any thing els with it into a civill state
well setled, but the Kingdome of Heauen or departinge thence
taketh anye thinge els away with it, but that which it brought;
nor that much lesse my soueraigne Lord King James professinge
the doctrine of the Gospel and the maintenance of Christianity
(though it were true that he erreth in holding of some pointes in
religion which the Bishop of Rome hath condemned for heresies ;
and that he doth indeede punishe some of them, who in those
pointes doe holde against him with the Bishop of Rome,) ought
or maye lawfully therefore be disturbed, or preiudiced in his
regall and civill gouernment by anye of his naturall borne sub-
iectes under any such pretence. And therefore whosoeuer holdeth
and mainteineth when the Apostles of Christ did comande all
Christians to obey and be subiecte not only for feare, but like
wise for conscience sake, to the civill Magistrates and Emperours
who in those dayes bare rule, and were then both enimies of the
Gospel and persecutors of such as professed it; that they (the saide
Apostles) in those and such like places of the Scriptures, in the
Newe Testament did but temporize and dissemble as meaninge
that such theire preceptes shoulde binde Christians no longer but
untill there number should be so increased, as that they might be
able without any great damage by force of armes to suppresse
such civill Magistrates and Emperours, and rather than faile to
murther them; and that then they might lawfully so doe either
themselues, and by their owne authoritie or by the direccon of
those that shoulde succeede St. Peter in the Bishopricke of Rome:
I doe verily beleeue in mye conscience that he or they whosoeuer
Pope, Cardinall, Jesuite, saecular priest or any other person, that
doth so interpret such places of the Apostles in the newe Testa
ment, doth shamefullye peruert their meaninge and blaspheme
the holy ghost, by whose instinct and direccon they did so write;
and that the Deuill himself could neuer haue conceaued a more

319

APPENDIX

pestilent deuise, for the utter discreditinge of the whole Scrip
tures.

1605

(Petyt MSS. 538. 38. f. 212. docketed in Bancroft's hand,
"1605 myne.")

I, A. B. doe truely and syncerely acknowledge, professe, testifie,
and declare in my conscience before God and the world that our
Soueraigne Lord, King James is lawfull and rightfull King of
this realme, and of all other his Majesty's dominions and Coun
tries: And that aswell you, before whome I make this recogni
tion and acknowledgement as all others, put on authoritie by his
majestic are lawfull Magistrates : and that I am bounde in con
science by tfie worde of god, to speake the truthe syncerely and
unfaynedly according to the asking and understanding of you,
that doe examine me:1 And that the Pope neither of himself,
nor by any authoritie of the Church or Sea of Rome, or by any
other meanes with any other, hath any power or authoritie to
depose the King; or to dispose any of his Majesty's kingdom es or
dominions, or to discharge any of his subiectes of their alle-
geance, and obedience to his Maiesties; or to giue license or leaue
to any of them to beare armes, raise tumult or to offer any vio
lence or hurt to his Maiesty's Royall person, state or gouernment,
or to any of his Majesty's subiectes, within his Majesty's do
minions. And all these thinge I doe acknowledge syncerely,
according to these expresse wordes by me spoken, without any
equivocation or mentall evasion, or secret reseruation whatsoeuer.
And I do make this recognition and acknowledgement hartily,
willinglie, and truely and so subscribe it with mine owne hand
for satisfaction of all, that esteeme or call themselues Catholick
who either haue held or thought the Contrarie, or doubted there
of. All which I doe plainely and syncerely vow, protest and
acknowledge, uppon the true faith of a Christian Catholick.

So helpe me God.

'i These words prove that this form draft of the oath of 1606 itself.
was not intended, when made, as a

320

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

1606
The Oath of Allegiance

(3 & 4 Jac. I. c. iv. sect, ix)

I, A. B. do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify
and declare in my conscience before God and the world, that our
sovereign lord King James is lawful and rightful King of this
realm and of all other his Majesty's dominions and countries;1
and that the Pope neither of himself nor by any authority of the
Church or See of Rome or by any other means with any other
hath any power or authority to depose the King, or to dispose
any of his Majesty's kingdoms or dominions, or to authorize any
foreign prince to invade or annoy him or his countries,2 or to dis
charge any of his subjects of their allegiance and obedience to
his Majesty, or to give license or leave to any of them to bear
arms, raise tumult or offer any violence or hurt to his Majesty's
royal person, state or government or to any of his Majesty's sub
jects within his Majesty's dominions. Also3 I do swear from
my heart that notwithstanding any declaration or sentence of
excommunication or deprivation made or granted or to be made
or granted by the Pope or his successors or by any au
thority derived or pretended to be derived from him or his
see against the said King his heirs or successors, or any ab
solution of the said subjectes from their obedience, I will
bear faith and true allegiance to his Majesty, his heirs and
successors, and him or them will defend to the uttermost of
my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever, which
shall be made against his or their persons, their crown and dig
nity, by reason or colour of any such sentence or declaration or
otherwise, and will do my best endeavour to disclose and make
known unto his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and
traitorous conspiracies, which I shall know or hear of to be
against him or any of them ; and I do further swear that I do
from my heart abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical,
this damnable doctrine and position, that princes which be ex-

1 Here the long passage in the form 2 This clause was not in the form

of 1605, beginning "And that aswell of 1605.

you " to ' ' that do examine me, is s From here all is new to ' ' And all

omitted. these things I do plainly ..."

321

APPENDIX

communicated or deprived by the Pope may be deposed or mur
dered by their subjects or any other whatsoever: and I do be
lieve and in my conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor
any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this oath or
any part thereof, which I acknowledge by good and full authority
to be lawfully ministered unto me, and do renounce all pardons
and dispensations to the contrary: and all these things I do
plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear, according to these
express words by me spoken and according to the plain and com
mon sense and understanding of the same words, without any
equivocation or mental evasion or secret reservation whatsoever :
and I do make this recognition and acknowledgement heartily,
willingly and truly, upon the true faith of a Christian: so help
me God.

1 6 0 6 (?)

Form Offered by the Priests as a Substitute for the
Oath of Allegiance

(Tierney's Dodd's Church History, IV, p. cxc.)

We, the secular and regular priests and other catholics of Eng
land, swear, promise, and protest, as members of the civil and
politic body of this kingdom of England, that we acknowledge
our sovereign, king James, the first of that name, to be mediately
after God, the head of this civil body, without any dependence
on any other earthly power or jurisdiction whatsoever: and to
him and to his successors we will yield all fidelity, obedience, and
subjection, and will acknowledge in him an authority, power, and
princely dominion as ample as ever our predecessors, priests of
England, acknowledged or admitted in his majesty's royal progen
itors, kings of this realm. x

We further make oath and declare that, neither at the time of
our ordination, nor at any other time or place, did we ever bind
ourselves, by any oath of obedience or submission to any foreign
jurisdiction whatsoever, in virtue whereof this our oath of al
legiance may be rendered null, void, or conditional, at the will of

i This form is almost a literal translation of the Submission offered in

April, 1604.

322

CONSTITUTIONAL PRECEDENTS

those by whom we were ordained; that they have no power to dis
pense with our said oath; and that we will not accept of any such
pretended dispensation. We moreover swear and protest that we
neither have had already nor will hereafter have, any intercourse,
intelligence, or dealing, with any prince, prelate, potentate, or
person, of whatever place or order, at home or abroad, under any
pretext or for any cause, to the prejudice, hurt, or danger of the
king's royal person, or of his realms and dominions; but that we
will be always ready, with all loyalty and submission, even with
the effusion of our blood, to defend, and to excite all others with
whom we live to defend, our said king and his successors, as well
against all foreign invasions and practices as against all domestic
rebellions and conspiracies, under whatever pretext, or by what
ever authority excited or contrived, against the peace of our
said sovereign lord, his person, crown, and dignity, and against
the peace of his realms and dominions; and we further promise
that we will do this, any excommunication or other ecclesiastical
censure, pronounced or to be pronounced, to the contrary notwith
standing: and we solemnly engage to teach and persuade all
others, his majesty's subjects, with whom we chance to converse,
to act in like manner.

1 6 0 6 ( !)

Form, Offered by the Priests as a Substitute for the
Oath of Allegiance

(Tierney's Dodd's Church History, IV, cxci.)

I, A. B., as concerning my allegiance towards his majesty, do,
in all points, acknowledge as dutifully, and as far forth, as any
good subject ought to do to his prince: and I do truly and sin
cerely acknowledge, profess, and testify, and declare in my con
science, before God and the world, that our sovereign lord king
James is lawful king of this realm, and of all other his dominions
and countries : And that I do and will bear true faith and
loyalty to his majesty, and him will defend, to the uttermost of
my power, against all unlawful conspiracies and attempts, which
shall be made against his person, crown, and dignity: And will

323

APPENDIX

also do my best endeavour to disclose and make known to his
majesty all treasons and traitorous conspiracies, which I shall
know and hear of, to be made against him: and I do also think
and verily believe that princes, which be excommunicate, ought
not to be murdered by their subjects nor any other. And all
these things I do plainly express, and sincerely acknowledge and
swear, according to these express words by me spoken, by the
true faith of a Christian.

So help me God.

324

CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS

ORDERS OF 1593

(Cams College MSS. Cambridge, 103, f. 173. Cotton MSS. Cleo
patra, F, II, f. 204. )1

Orders agreed upon by the Archbishop of Canterburie and the
Bishops of ytt Province by them, or (a) such as are under them
to be observed, for the better executing of the Lawes established,
and avoydinge of sundrye offence, (b)

Ministers

1. First whereas there is fault found with the number of
wanderinge and insufficient mynisters. It is thought fytt that
none alreadye made be admytted to any Cure hereafter without
diligent examynacon of the Bishop for his Learning and without
substantiall testimoniall of his good life and behavior: whereof a
Recorde to be kept in the Registerie. And that none betweene this
and the next Parliament be admytted to the mynistrie except he
shall be a Bachelor of Arte (c) at the Least of one of the Uni
versities of this Realme.

Mariages

2. That in (d) the fourme alreadie devised for lycences of mari-
age by the L : archb : it is added, That all mariages be solemnized
in the parishe Church of one of the parties betweene the hower
(e) of vii and xii of the clocke in the forenoone by the mynister

i The reading of Cotton MSS. are "in": (e) "howres": (f) "the":
given: (a) "and": (b) "of- (g) "other": (h) "the."
fences": (e) "Artes": (d) omits

325

APPENDIX

of the same Parishe. And that all other Bishops of this (f) Prov
ince shall f ollowe the same forme.

Consent of Parents, etc.

3. It is convenient that the consent of the parents and the (g)
gouernors be had in writinge of such yonge persons to be maryed, as
be under the age of xxi yeares, and that allso with the consent of
the Bishop of the Dioces. And if the persons to be maryed be
aboue that age, it is sufficientlie provided alreadie by the Bond
that is now used.

Citation Viis Et Modis

4. The Citation viis et modis not to be awarded in any cause
without a primarie citation first had, and returned before. And that
in causes of office, The Citation viis et modis be upon some Sondaye
or Holiedaye affixed upon the doare of the parishe churche or chap-
pell a lytle before the beginning of divine service, or at some other
time upon the doare of the usual house where the partie to be cited
doth dwell with his familie. The same citation, or a true copie there
of to be left there during the tyme of divine service, or some good
parte thereof.

Citation ex Officio

5. And that in cases of Office, the Mynister in the time of the
most frequencie of the people shall signifie publicquely, that the
partie is by authoritie of such a Judge, summoned and warned to
appeare, in suche place and at suche tyme, as is contayned in the
same citation. And that their (h) Apparitor shall returne the said
Citation endorsed with the ministers Certificate of the execution
thereof, which if the mynister shall wilfullie refuse to doe, then
the saide mynister to be commaurided sub poena Juris to doe it, or
else to appeare forthwith before the Ordinarie.

Excommunication

6. That at the tyme of the denunciation of any excommunica
tion, warninge be geven publiquelie by the Minister, that all men

326

CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS

doe abstayne from the companie of such excommunicate person,
under payne of excommunication themselves.

Table of Fees

7. That the Table conteyninge the particular fees of euery office,
be placed in the Consistorie, and Registerie in suche sort, as every
suiter maye convenientlie viewe and reade the same. And that
euerye Bishopp geve Streite charge to suche as are under him
not to take any other ffees then are sett down in the saide Table.

Orders and Lycences

8. That Ordenaries take carefull heede in orderinge deacons
and Mynisters, and in admytting to benefices and in lycencinge to
preach or teache suche persons onelie as shall geve good declaracon
of theire conformitie and consent to the Religion and orders of the
Church of England nowe established.

Absolution of the Poore ex Officio

9. That in matters of mere office for th' avoydinge of the of
fence that is conceyved by the multitude of poore persons formerly
excommunicated, it may be observed by euery ordinarie and Judge
ecclesiastical exercysing Jurisdiction, that suche poore persons
as nowe stand excommunicated and shalbe certyfied by the minis
ter, Churchwardens and Sydemen of any particular parishe to be
unable through pouertie to paye theire fees, and which shall shewe
theire conformitie in appearinge or satisfyinge the order of the
Courte (for breache wrhereof they stand excommunicate) shalbe
absolued with out payinge any fees.

A NOTE OF DIVERSE THINGES CONSIDERABLE ABOUT THE
EXECUTION OF THE LATE CANONS, ETC.

(Cotton MSS. Cleopatra, F, II, f. 201.)

About thadmitting of ministers. Cap. I.

(1) The Church is greved with manie wanderinge and insuffi
cient Ministers, therefore it is requisite that more care be had of
the canon in that behalf.

327

APPENDIX

(2) It is thought meet that accordinge to the Canon the names
and qualities of all the ministers ordeyned or instituted be everie
yeare dulie transmitted to the Archbushopp, and therewithall a
note of their subscriptions to the Articles under the Bishopps hand.

(3) Item that the booke of ordination of ministers be duelie ob-
serued and namelie in the presentinge and examininge of the par
ties to be ordeyned by the Archdeacons or their deputies, which is
omitted in manie places, and maye breed some inconvenience to the
parties ordayned.

Commutation of penaunce. Cap. II

It is thought that the order for commutation is not dulie obserued
in diverse places.

Ill

Licenses to Marrie. Cap. Ill

( 1 ) It is wished that one forme of condition be nowe agreed upon
and obserued in all bondes for marriages without Bannes, accord
inge to the Cautions sett downe in the Canon and that these wordes,
publice ac tempestiue in facie ecclie may be interpreted (in the
Church at the usual tyme of divine service.

(2) Item. That great care be had of the surties, that they be able,
honest and knowen sufficient men.

(3) Item that noe license be graunted to anie child or servant
without the expresse consent first had of the maisters, parentes
or gouernors in writing, sufficientlie testified, under their and the
ministers hand of the parishe.

Excommunication. Cap. IV

(1) ffor amendment of hastie excommunication, It is wished that
the course of lawe be dulie obserued in the execution of the pro-
cesse, viz. ffirst that noe Citacon vijs et modis, be awarded unlesse
a primarie hath gone before, and that the Apparitor doe make
fayth before the Judges in open Court, that he hath faythfullie
and diligentlie sought the partie.

(2) Item, that the Citation (vijs et modis) be solemlie affixed

328

CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS

upon the dore of the parishe churche or Chapell where the parties
dwelling or most usuall aboade is, duringe all the tyme of morne-
inge or eveninge prayer, upon some sundaye or holliedaye.

(3) Item that the minister in the tyme of the most frequence
of the people there, shall signifie publiquelie, that the partie is by
aucthoritie of such a Judge sommoned and warned to appear in
such a place and at such a tyme as is conteyned in the said Cita-
con upon paine, etc. And the Apparitor shall returne the said Cita-
con indorsed with the ministers certificate of the execution there
of in fornie aforesaid.

(4) Item, it is to be considered, whether it be not also meete,
that the ludge doe expect some one court daye after the returne
of this Certificate, before he doe excommunicate the partie for
not appearinge.

(5) ffor avoydinge of the offence that groweth by the multi
tude of poore persons, that now stand excommunicated beinge not
able to paye the fees, ye may please your LLs: to consider,1
whether it be not meete to take order ymediatelie after the ende
of this Parliament, that such as by certificate of the ministers,
Church-wardens and sidemen are found to be soe poore, as that
they doe lyve upon the releefe of the parishe, and stand excom
municate onelie for not appearinge, or not payeinge fees, shall
upon such certificate and their apparance be forthwith absolued
without anie fees payeinge. And yf they stand excommunicate
for not doeinge penaunce, or not satisfyinge the order of the
Judge, then in case they shall doe their penaunce, and satisfie the
order, and certifie the same ymediately upon such certificate they
shalbe absolued without anie fees.

(6) Item that yf anie such persons doe hereafter thorough their
wilfull obstinacie deserue to be excommunicated warninge be
geuen publiquelie by the minister at the denunciation of their ex
communication, that all men doe absteyne from their companie,
(sub pena luris) that thereby they maye be kept in better obe
dience.

(7) Item yt is thought consonant to the Canon and reason that
the minister to be associated with the laye Judge, for pronoun-

1 This may be a petition or list of report of a committee of bishops to
suggestions drawn up by the Lower the House of Bishops.
House of Convocation, or possibly a

329

APPENDIX

cinge of excommunication ought to be a verie grave and lerned
man aucthorized by Commission to sitt as assistant with the Judge,
whereby he might be acquainted with the merites of the cause
before he pronounce the sentence and not to haue the same de-
liuered over the Judges shoulder to be pronounced behind his
backe.

Pluralities. Cap. V

Concerni nge pluralities of benefices, it is to be wished that
anie publique preacher licensed, (though under the degree of a
Master of Art) maye be permitted to hold two benefices, beinge
under value and within compasse of myles.

ffees. Cap. VI

It is complained that the fees of orderinge ministers, of licenses
to preach, and of Institutions are grown verie excessive and scan
dalous in diverse places. It is thought that farmeinge of lurisdic-
tion is cause of excessive fees.

Item, in other matters the table of fees is either not sett upp at
all or soe sett, as men cannot easilie read them.
It is generalie desired that none be ordered deacon or minister,
or admitted to anie cure or benefice, or licensed to preache or to
teache anie schollers publiquelie or privatlie, unlesse he doe first
subscribe and take the oath of the supremacie.
Item it is to be considered, whether it be not needfull for the
necessarie supplie of Peticannons in Cathedrall and Collegiat
Churches to admitt some singinge men of honest conversation and
tollerable knowledge in the Scriptures unto the Ministerie, though
they understand not the lattin tongue, tyinge them by bond or
otherwise to the servinge in those churches for the which they are
first ordeyned.

Item, yt may please your Lordshippes to haue care that none be
licensed preachers inhabled to receyve benefices of XXX£ but
such as ar maisters of art of fowre yeares of standing at the least
or have byn preachers publiquely Licensed for 4 yeares before.

330

Ill

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

THE BISHOPPS PROCEEDINGS AND OPINIONS TOWCHING

THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE COMITTED TO

THEIRE CONSIDERACON

(Additional MSS. 28571, f. 187-192.)

The three first points concerninge explanations of some thinges
in the Common booke are already finished.

The fourth which towcheth the translation of the Bible hath
not as yett ben dealt in.

The fifthe was sett downe by the LL. in these wordes: consid
eration to be had what nomber of ministers there are: where
placed: howe qualified: and howe provided for already: to the
intent that better provision may be where they are wantinge and
further cure taken for those which haue not competente maynte-
naunce.

ffor the first and second point (sic) of this proposition, viz:
the nomber of ministers and the places where they remayne, there
are as many mynisters as there are parishes in England, besides
those which remayne in bothe Universityes : which serve cures
under other Ministers, and which remayne in divers noblemen
and gentlemens houses : the nomber whereof is greate but the
certainty of it as yett is not knowne.

Touchinge theire qualities and how they are provided for; very
many are Preachers and many are no Preachers. Many beinge
no Preachers haue ecclesiasticall liuings and many that are
preachers doe want; viz: suche as remayne in the Universities,
serve cures under other ministers and remayne in noble and gentle
mens houses.

ffor those parishes where the Incumbents are no preachers these
may be the remedies. 1° that as muche may be allotted out of the

331

APPENDIX

livinge towards the mayntenance of a preacher as the incumbent
may any wayes spare so as he may live, the rest is to be supplyed
by the parishe. 2° that after the said Incumbentes deathe who is
no Preacher: it may not be lawfull for any BB to admitt any
into it who is not a Preacher. 3° whereas partly upon necessitie
and partly through oversight divers insufficient persons haue here
tofore ben made ministers: it woulde nowe be provided for that
when any insufficient minister either for his learninge or conver
sation shoulde be presented to a benefice : it may be lawfull for
the B. to reiect him and vppon any Quare impedit brought the
Bs. certificate thereof to the Judges may suffice without further
triall by any course at the temporall lawe.

But the cheifest drifts which this Consultacon aymeth att is:
how every parishe may afforde a competent mayntenance for a
Preacher, ffor that once effected in shorte tyme there would be
able ministers almost for every parishe in England. These meanes
therefore are offered to be Considered of for that purpose.

1° There are many Personages and vicaredges in Englande now
scarce able to finde a Reader, which would afforde a competent
livinge for a Preacher, if it might be provided for by Acte of
Parliament that all Vicars and persons havinge benefices with
cure of soules might haue the tithes payed unto them in kinde
accordinge to the auncient ecclesiasticall constitutions of the
churche, notwithstanding any custome priviledge or composition
to the contrary.

2° If some small vicaredges and personages notwithstandinge
the said paymentes of tithes in kinde, shoulde not be able to man-
teyne a Preacher, then one or two of the small benefices next
adioyninge and livinge fitt for that purpose might be conioyned
into one.

3° In cities and Towneshipps where there are no pradiall tithes
att all or litle, and where in auncient tymes the Priestes livinge
did rise uppon offerings, oblations, and personal or priuie tithes
which nowe are utterly decayed: it would be provided by an acte
of Parliament that tithes in suche places should be payd accord
inge to the house rents of the Inhabitants, as it is in London.
And that where in suche cities or Towneshipps there are divers
litle parishes which are not able every one of them to maynteyne
a Preacher, notwithstandinge they had tithes payed unto them

332

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

accordinge to the manner of London: there two or three might
likewise be ioyned together to make one parishe.

4° Where the personages are impropriate, there the Cure is
discharged either by a Vicar or by a stipendary. The Vicars
are mainteyned with suche tythes only as were allotted unto them
by composition when the Personages were first impropriate which
in many places notwithstandinge they should be payed in kinde,
woulde not be able to maynteyne a Preacher. But where the
Cure is served by a stipendary, his mayntenance is commonly
much worse. In which cases and where there can be no conven
ient unyon of divers livinges in one as aforesaid, these wantes
would be supplied and remedied if the B: of the diocese might
have authoritie by acte of Parliament to allot to every suche vicar
or stipendary congruam portionem out of the impropriations and
all other personages that have vicaridges indowed.

5° In Lancashire and in the shires adioyninge there are many
personages of very large extent which haue divers chappells under
them: whereunto as many househoulders doe apperteyne as to the
most parishes in England southward. These personages all of
them almoste are impropriate. So as here it were meet, that the
said chappells were made of themselves several parishes: or ells
as before the allowance for Preachers in those places must be
allotted out of the Impropriations which are indeed of greate
yearely worth.

6° If all the Benefices with cure in England were divided in 6
partes, 5 of them and more are of lay men's patronages whereby
many of the said Benefices are made unable through the Patrons
greediness to mainteyne a Preacher in any honest sorte. ffor
remedy whereof there would be a more severe statute made against
symonye.

Concerning the 6° proposition there are in it two generall
partes. 1° with what causes the Bishops and theire Chauncellors,
Commissaries and Officialls shall deale? for answere whereunto
there is some uncertayntie as of late they haue bene impugned
by Prohibitions. Otherwise the answere would in tymes past have
been directe viz that all causes are of ecclesiasticall cognizance
which are not to be reformed by any originall writt att the comon
lawe.

The 2 generall point is concerning order to be taken for the pro-

333

APPENDIX

ceedinge of Chauncellors and other ecclesiasticall officers in the
said causes: that thereby certayne supposed abuses may be re
formed. These remedies followinge will meete with those enor-
mityes that are complayned of.

1° That Bishops may not sell theire office whereby he that buy-
eth in grosse as it was obiected must be compelled to sell by
retayle.

2° That no Chauncellor, Archdeacon, Comissary or Officiall
shall interteyne any criminall causes but vpon presentment or
iudiciall accusation where there is a partie: unlesse in causes of
greater importance which no man will present, and yett are
necessary for the comon good to be punished; the B. shall license
them under his hande to precede in them ex officio.

3° That presentments be not urged above once or twice in
the yeare.

4° That neither Chauncellor, Comissary or officiall shall keepe
aboue viij courtes in the yeare for causes criminall.

5° That all ecclesiasticall Judges, Registers and other officers
belonginge to theire Courtes: shall be tyed to the ancient fees
used to be paied 20 or 30 yeares since.

6° That all Chauncellors, Commissaries, and officialls may be
sworne to deale uprightly in their proceedings and without cor
ruption.

The 7th proposition or resolution is satisfied towchinge the writ-
inge of letters into Lancashire.

The 8th point hathe not ben yett dealt in towchinge the Comis-
sion for causes ecclesiasticall: sondry of his Maiesty's Councill
beinge appointed to ioyne togeather with the Bishopps for the
expeditinge of it.

As towchinge the 9th proposition: there beinge also divers of
his Maiestys Councell as well as Bishops appointed to deale in it :
the same hathe not as yett ben resolved uppon. Only the late
lo: Archebusshop of Canterb: and some other Bishopps had
concluded to haue offered the proiect followinge to theire LL.
consideration.

ffirst it was thought meete to be propounded whether the ec
clesiasticall Judges might not haue authoritie to impose for con
tumacy a mulct to the Kinges use, or to imprison, and that those
coertions should be executed by the said ludges and theire officers

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THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

as in the Kinges ecclesiasticall Courte of Comission, the Admi-
rall court and court of Delegates, for admirall causes, and not be
driven to seeke after execution of theire decrees and sentences by
processe owt of the temporall Courte as the Chauncery or otherwise,
with greate delay and expences. If this be not thought convenient
then as followeth.

The ecclesiasticall Judge uppon the citation executed and re
turned conteyning the offence of the partie shall preceede first
by suspension and uppon 20 daies. contumacye and contempt of
the said censure and denuntiation thereof (beinge also in effect a
second citation) then to proceede to excommunication and not be
fore. And that no man be suspended or excommunicated upon a
formall certificate by a Proctor, but that there be an affidavit
made of the due servinge of the processe. Also the said ecclesias
ticall Judge decreeinge an excommunication as aforesaid the same
shall be executed by a grave minister who by a former canon is to
assiste the Judge for that purpose. Provided that in such cases
as concerned Ministers, the ecclesiasticall Judge shall neither sus-
pende, excommunicate nor deprive any of them but with the as
sistance of 2 grave and learned preachers att the least. And in
greater and more greevous crimes where the Bishopp then in per
son shall sitt as ludge, he shall be assisted in the said censures
for the greater solemnitie of the Action with the Deane and some
of the Prebendaries or with 3 or 4 suche grave preachers as the
Bishopp shall thinke fitt to call unto him in that behalfe.

AN ANONYMOUS ACCOUNT IN FAVOUR OF THE BISHOPS
HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

(Baker MSS. M. m. 1. 45, f. 155-157.)

Anno Domini, 1603. Acts Ecclesiastical in the pryvi Chamber.

The Conference began upon the xvith daye of January at xi
and continued untill v of the clocke. none suffered to be present
but the Counsaile and suche as were Agents thereunto summoned.
The Kinge maid a speache unto them, wherein he signified his
desire to establishe truthe of Religion. And forasmuch as they
(speaking of the Puritans) had excepted against the present
State of Religion and Church Discipline as erroneous and imper
fect, he was desirous to heare the objections that yf they were

335

APPENDIX

approved and allowed to be just and equall, they might be re
formed accordingly.

Wherupon Dr. Reynolds as the mowthe of the rest answered
the Kinges speache, and excepted against many points, which he
deryved from these generall heads. (1) Articles of Religion.

(2) Subscription to the Articles and Booke of Common Prayer.

(3) Sufficiencie and Residencie of the Ministrie. (4) lurisdic-
ion of the Bishoppes and Chauncellours. In the Articles he made
exception and a contradicon between the Article of Predestinacon :
and fallinge from faithe, affirminge th'one to overthrow th 'other.
The second against the Article of Sacraments, because that our
Churche renounceth confirmacon and yet the Booke of Common
Prayer alloweth yt.

To the first Dr. Overall craved audience, and replied as a partie
particularly aymed at therin. The Kinge graunted him verie
willingly licentiam loquendi, and was fully satisfied by him, ad-
vysyinge in the conclusion, that this additon mighte be putt to
the Article, that the Elect might often fall from grace and faithe.

To the second the Bishop of Winchester and London answered,
that confirmacon was rejected as a Sacrament, and in the prayer
Booke allowed as a holy and godly practice of the Apostles in the
primitive Churche.

After that he made some exception against the Translation of
our Bible and the readinge of the Apocrypha, the former was a
little debated, and so passed over as a matter of no great moment:
and yet the Kinge content to allowe some newe Translation, yf
the Bishoppes would consent thereunto. As for the Apocrypha
he allowed and iustified the use thereof.

The second maine and generall point of subscription the Kinge
did utterly reiect, and would no waye yeld to their request, to
be freed from subscription. Here were handled all matters of
Controuersie, as Cappes, surplice, Ringes, and Crosses, and after
much opposition and Replies, the Kinge made a peremptorie con
clusion, for the allowance and continuance of all these particulars
as decent and expedient. Mr. Knewstubbes was fierce ageinst
and so was Dr. Andrewes as feirce for the Crosse, and the Kinge
most resolute for yt.

They made a Peticon: to be exempted from the superstitious
surplice in regard to the weaknes of many consciences which

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THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

therby were dryven from their function : but the Kinge replied
with derision of their allegacon, and sayd that those weake
consciences were such as ought to strengthen others, and in all
matters of faction shewed themselves most headstronge, proude
and violent.

The third point was judged impossible, because ther were not
Ministers sufficient to furnishe everie parishe : nor everie parishe
able to finde a sufficient minister: and so that point was passed
over.

For ther last point of Jurisdicon : there desire was that they
Bishopps should not execute yt alone by themselves, but joyntly
with the Presbiterie of their Brethren the Pastors and Ministers
of the Churche. Wherunto the Kinge replied merily sayeinge he
would have the Presbitery buried in silence for these 7 yeares, and
yf then he grewe idle, lasie, fatt and pursie, I will sett up Pres
bitery (saith he) to exercise my body and my patience, otherwise
yt shall never up for me, and so rest contented for that matter.

This is the Truthe and nothinge but the truthe, yf anie con
tradict this, you maie resist hym. They had a could pull of yt
and are utterly foyled. They are greived at nothinge so muche,
as the continuance of a Popishe Relique of the Surplice.

It is thought they sewe for connivencie in yt behalfe, and
rather loose theyr lyvinges, then weare yt, God graunt yt.

Puritan Actors
in thes Pointes.

Dr. Reynolds. Oxon. the principall mouthe and

speaker.

Dr. Sparke. spake verie sparingly.
Mr. Chaderton. mute as any Fyshe.
Knewstubbes feirce against the Crosse.
Patrick Galloway, silent in all thinges.

Dr. Andrewes

Overall

Edes

Anti
Puritans

Thomson
Barloe
Kinges

Montaine

Ravis

Abbotts

Supervisors
of this
Conference

337

Bishop of London
of Winchester

Bancrofte

Billson

APPENDIX

Dr. Fey the (Feilde) went in with the Puritans, he never spake
but once, and that altogether ageinst them.

Furthermore Chaderton must conforme, and his irregular col-
ledge to weare the surplice, and receive the communion kneelinge
or els be putt owt of yt. The Kinge imposed this by reason of
Information, gyven him from the Lord Henry.

The Chancellors of both the Universities must send their letters
downe, that none shall be admitted without subscription.

This is the Triumphe they so longe expected.

Dr. Reynolds and his brethren are utterly condempned for silly
men.

PURITAN ACCOUNTS OF THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

Letter of January 15, 1603.

(Barlow, Summe and Substance of the Conference at end of the
Edition of 1604.)

Sir : — I cannot conceale from you, the good successe, which it
hath pleased God to sende us, by the Conference, which his Ma-
iestie had with the Bishops at the court. There appeared none
but the Bishops which were with the King aboue three houres:
Can. Lon. Win. fell downe on their knees, and desired, that all
things might remaine, least the Papists should think we haue
bene in an error. The King replied, that in 42 yeares corruptions
might creep in. He spake of confirmation, priuate Baptisme, the
Crosse, dumbe Ministerie. non residence, the Courtes; which he
promised to amend; especially he spake bitterly against priuate
Baptisme ; sayinge hee had as Hue an Ape as a woman should
Baptise his childe, and againste Courtes which hee saide he would
put downe. The Lo: chief e Instice, and the Lo: Cecil, against
Excommunications by Laymen. Maister Deane of the Chappell,
speaking something to the King in his eare, the Bishop of Lon
don, insolently said unto him, Doctor Montague speake out, that
we may heare you, and seeke not to crosse us. At their departure,
they said, that if the King should use the Ministers in such sort as

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THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

they were used, they would be too insolent. The King said they
were his subiectes, and if hee would not heare them, then they
had iust cause to complayne. The Bishops brought foorth many
Popish arguments which the King very ernestly answered, and
learnedly, more then tenne times calling them Popish arguments,
and saide by those reasons, they might prooue Popery. The
Bishop of Winchester saide, that if he tooke away priuate Bap-
tisme, he ouerthrew all antiquitie. The Bishop of Peterbrough
brought a foolish argument, with much disgrace to himselfe. The
Bishops haue taken Wednesday to consider the Kings speech.
The Ministers come to the King on Munday at nine of the clocke.
Honest People about the Court are comforted. Conformitans
hang down their heads, and the bishops men curse the Puritanes.
Sic. explicit: 1. dies.

I haue sent you the declaration of the Conference which was
in this manner: The firste day the Bishoppes mette before his
Maiestie: Bishops of Canterburie, London and Winchester, mak
ing earnest sute, that all things might stand as they did, least the
Papists should take offence, who might say, we would perswade
them to come to a church hauing errors in it: and the Puritans
will say, they haue bin persecuted long : The King answered, that
the best state would gather corruptions, and that it was no argu
ment for them, to say, they would not be cured of the pox because
they had had it 30 yeares : he concluded against absolution, con
firmation, priuate Baptisme, the dumbe and scandalous Ministers:
pluralities, the Courtes, and the authoritie of Bishoppes by the
high Commissioners, etc. The second day the Ministers were
conuented before the King, who answered fearefully and modest
ly. The Bishop of London behaved himselfe insolently, sayinge
these are Cartwrightes schollers, scismatikes, breakers of your Ma-
iesties lawes; you may know them by their Turkic gownes, and
silke Grogorum: the third day they met all: where the King
spake much to unitie, that they might ioyne against the Papists:
All the three dayes the King behaued himselfe admirable to the
beholders, graunting to the Ministers their earnest request, that

339

APPENDIX

the Ceremonies of the Crosse in Baptisme, and the Surplisses,
reuerent for antiquitie, should not be urged upon the consciences
of the Ministers, so that they were peaceable men, and that they
should haue time to consider of them; many hundreds being
resolued rather to haue lost their places, then to haue yeelded to
those superstitions, against which they had Preached. The last
day, the Bishop of Cant: was intreated, to be a meanes that
the ceremonies might not be pressed: but he answered they had
bene urged as necessary, and should be so still. But it pleased
God to moue his Maiestie to a more peaceable course: the Bishop
of Peterborow came in with his argument about Baptisme, which
the King made voide to his great reproach : The King saide many
times that the Bishoppes reasons were popish, and that they might
establish Poperie by them: it is thought that the King will be
shortly in Huntingdonshire.- The Lord Chancellor, the Lord
Cecil, the Lord Chiefe Justice, and the Atturnie Generall, must
set downe some course for the high Commission and the Spirit-
uall Courts.

Ill

Some of the speeches that are bruited upon or after Maister
Doctor Reynolds returne to Oxon. concerning the late conference
before his Maiestie:

I That the Kinges Maiestie did gratifie Maister Doctor Rey
nolds in euery thing which he proposed: or that Doctor Reynolds
obtained and preuailed in euerie thing he did desire.

II That if anie man reporte the contrarie, hee doth lye: or
that they should giue him the lye, from Maister Doctor Reynolds.

III That these thinges now obtained by the reformers were
but the beginning of reformation: the greater matters were yet
to come.

IV That my Lord of Winton stoode mute: and said little or
nothing.

V That my Lord of London called Doctor Reynolds schis-
matick indeede: (he thankes him for it) but otherwise said little
to purpose.

VI That the Kinges Maiestie used the Bishops with very hard
words: but imbraced Maister Doctor Reynolds, and used most
kind speeches to him.

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THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

VII That my Lo : of Canterbury or my Lo : of London, falling
on his knees, besought his Maiestie to take their cause unto his
»wne handes, and to make some good end of it: such as might
stand with their credite.

IV
(Harleian MSS. 828, f. 32.)

A declaration of the conference had before the kings most ex
cellent Majesty and diuers of his most honorable priuie counsell,
to wit:

The Lord Chancellor, the Eearle of Nottinhame, the Earle of
Deuonshire, the Lord Treasurer, the Lo: Chamberlin, the Lo:
Cecill, the Lo : Worcester, Lo : Northampton, the Lo : Chief e Jus
tice at Kingston (sic) between the ArchBp of Canterbury, B. of
London, B. of Winchester, Bishop of Durham, B. of Carlisle, B.
of St. Dauies, B. of Chichester, B. of Peterborough, B. of Wor
cester, B. of Bristowe, with the Deanes of Paules, Westminster,
Winsor, Worcester, Winchester, Chester, Christchurch, Sarum, of
the Chappell, one the one side, and Doctor Sparkes, Doc. Rey
nolds, Doctor ffielde, Mr. Chadderton, Mr. Knewstubbes on the
other side.

Upon thursday the xij of January, 1603, (being the appoynted
day of the conference) Came before kinges Majesty at Hampton
Court the B. B. abouesayde, at which time his Majesty charged
them, as they woold answer at the last day, that they shoold de-
liuer upon the Saturday following what they thought in their
consciences was needfull to be reformed in the churche of God.
On Saturday followinge the Bishops being before the King in
the privy Chamber, the King's Majesty declared the purpose for
which he had called them thither, as is aboue noted. The BBs
of Canterbury, London, and Winchester fell down upon their
knees, and humbly beseeched his Majesty yt there might not be
any alteration of any thing before prescribed and used in the
gouernement of the Church and deuine seruice of god in Eng
land, alleadging these reasons, first for yt the papists woold take
offence that they had bene 40 yeares and more compelled to come
to the Churche and to submit themselues to the Religion therein

341

APPENDIX

used, and now the same to be argued of insufficiency and corrup
tion by this alteration, 21y for yt the Puritans being also in-
forced to conformity and subscription thereunto, woold say yt
they had ben uniustly persecuted all this while, in that they had
ben compelled to yeld to that which now might appeare not to
be warrantable. Whereunto the King answered that there was
no state either Ecclesiasticall or Ciuill whereunto in 40 yeares
some corruptions might not creepe, and that it was no reason that
because a man had ben sick of the pope 40 yeares, therefore he
shoold not be cured at length. And so proceeding to the cor
ruptions in the Comunion booke, Priuate Baptisme of women was
first brought in question, which the Bishops affirmed, not to be
allowed and tollerated by the booke, whereupon the booke was
sent for, and upon consideration thereof had, the Lordes of the
Counsell shewed their opinions that it was allowed and tollerated
by the booke. And thereupon his Majesty thought it meete that
it shoold be utterly remoued out of the booke, affirminge he had
as lieue his childe were baptised by an Ape as by a woman. But
the Bishops then tooke upon them to manteyne it by alleadginge
that if it shoold not be alloued of, then all antiquity woold be
utterly ouerthrowen. Whereunto his Majesty answered that as
well might they by color of antiquity bring in prayer for the
dead. And his Majesty then appealed to Mounser Gourden (a
man well read in auncient writers) affirming that he was able to
produce many places (especially in Augustine) agaynst the Bap
tisme of priuate men and women which being disavowed by the
Bishops, Mounser Gourden declared that he had shewed to Mr.
Doctor Mountegue 10 places at the least prouing the same and
then the doctor submissely speaking to the King, the Bishop of
London sayd, Speake out, Mr. Doctor, and do not crosse us, un
derhand. And then the Doctor openly acknowledged the same.
Amongest the rest the Bishop of Peterborough alleadged out of
the Ecclesiasticall writers that an ancient father in case of neces
sity Baptised with sand instead of water. Whereto his Majesty
answered pleasantly. A turd for the Argument, he might as well
haue pissed on them, for that had been more liker to water than
sand. And in fine his Majesty noted they were there more in-
iuriouse to the poore infants then the papists, for that the papists
to relieue the inconuenience ensuinge upon their opinion of the

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THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

necessity of Baptisme to saluation had prouided a Limbus for the
infants that departe unbaptised, but they (the Bishops) had no
prouision for them but hell that he coold see. So two houres
were spent before the Bishops woold yeeld that it was to be
amended. At the last, it was concluded that none shoold baptise
but ministers, and that if the fathers did require it in time of
danger of death the ministers shoold come home and baptise their
children; And then were concluded many of the rest of the mat
ters contayned in the articles, amongst which the Bishops al-
leadginge for non-residence and plurality of benefices the needfull
seruice of Noblemens Chaplains, the King answered that noble
men shoold keepe euery one a Chaplin in his house without hau-
ing many benefices.

And in matter of discipline the King sayde that it was no rea
son that the Chancellors shoold hold any iurisdiction ouer Min
isters or excommunication any way. To the which the Lord
Cecill spake verie earnestly and pertinently, and so did the Lord
Chancelor, and the Lord Chiefe Justice, adding that Registers
places are often solde for 500£ which they must gather up by
prowling (?). To which the Bishops answered that they found
the Registers places graunted by Patent before their time so that
they (the Bishops) were slaues to them and woold be glad that
order might be taken with them. And the King farther speaking
of the ministery in Irelande he sayd that without conscience of
obeinge he held them but as slaues, which upon euery occasion
woold be ready to rebell. And after 4 houres conference the
Bishops made petition that the King woold not heare the ministers
agaynst them in this conference. To which the King answered
that they were his subiectes, and if he shoold refuse to hear them,
they might iustly giue out agaynst him that he was an uniust
King, Then the Lo Chancellor called for Doctor Reynolds and
those that were seekers of reformation, and appoynted them to
attend there on Munday. At which time the ministers and the
Bishops of London and Winchester and the Deanes of Westmin
ster, and Panles, and Chester being before the King's Majesty,
he declared his present intendment, and required them to shew
what matters there were amisse in the Churche which they re
quired to be reformed, that all causes of disorder being remoued,
thei might ioyne together agaynst the comon adduersary.

343

APPENDIX

Whereupon Doctor Reynolds declared 4 principall grieuances
which they craued to be reformed. The first, concerninge the
purity of Doctrine, wherein he propounded first the defects of
the book of Articles. But the Bishop of London first interrupt
ing him, sayd of them that they were Schismatickes, and the
maintayners of all the Schismatickes in the land, and alleadged
many places of Counsels out of his note booke that such were
not to be heard agaynst a Bishop adding that they greatly abused
his Majestys patience in coming before him in their Turky gounes,
more likely to conforme themselues to Turks, then to the orders
of our Churche, as Thomas Cartwrite had taught them to doe,
whose scholler thei shewed themselues to be. Whereto Doctor
Reynolds gaue litle answer but that in the university they went
in such gounes as their orders there required, but abroad they
might use such facion of gounes as beseemed their callinge.
Whereto the Bishops replied that by the orders of our church
they shoold haue worne priestes gounes with tippets, and not
those trunck gounes; adding that they were under his Majesty's
power, and might iustly be punished therfore, if his Majesty's
clemency were not the more. Whereupon his Majesty sayde to
the Bishop. My Lord, you are too hote in the beginninge, and
within a while after, now my Lo : yow are more charitable. Then
his Majesty requiring of Doctor Reynolds what he found in the
Articles contrary to the puritye of doctrine, he declared that in
the Article 13 ( ?) it is there sayd that the Baptised may fall
from grace, and comit sin, which he sayd he thought not to be
eull meant, but that the baptised might so fall from grace, that
they might sin, but absolutely to fall from grace, he thought
that any receaued to grace, coold not, And further he moued that
for the avoydinge of the errors of general grace, which of late
haue bin moued in our churche, the 9 articles concluded upon in
a conference before the L: Archbishop of Canterbury about a
year agoe might be added to the booke of Articles, where Mr.
Doctor Overall dean of Paules on his knee moued his Majesty that
he might speake, and so permitted, sayd that that motion was
intend agaynst him, for that he had taught that those that haue
bin receaued to grace may fall from grace, and if they do not
repent they shall perish. But his Majesty there interposed, and
said, the electe indeede might fall, but neuer finally, so that they

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THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

can perish, for they shall rise agayn by repentance, and so cut of
that difference. Onely the Bishop of London insisted, that the
9 articles might not be added to the reste, for that the booke
thereby woold be made too great: and the King's Majesty seemed
to agree to him, as conceauing they had spoken of the comunion
booke which he sayd was bigg ynoughe already which Doctor
Reynolds perceyuing, told his Majesty that he ment the booke of
Articles, which being but small, the 9 Articles might well be
added. And then his Majesty understanding what booke they
spake of ended the strife and sayd it might be considered of.
Then explication was further required in an other Article, where
in it is sayd that in the congregation none but ministers shoold
minister Sacramentes where by (sayd Doctor Reynolds) it may be
aplied that others may baptise out of the congregation. And the
like was noted of the 37 Article, wherein it being sayd that the
Pope hath no power in the Realme of Englande, he required that
it might be added (nor ought to haue) And both those (as not
so much materiall) wrere left to further consideration.

Secondly, amongst those things which concerne purity of doc
trine, he wished that the translation might be reformed, and one
to stand as warranted for all. And there he shewed some cor
ruptions, namly in the 4 ca: Galla. v. 5 where it is translated
Sina bordereth upon Jerusalem, (for) answereth unto: and the
like in the Psal. 105. They were not obedient (instead of) dis
obedient. And in the 106 Psal: v. 30 Phineas stood up and
prayed (for) he executed judgment. Then the King freely gaue
assent that there shoold be one translation of the Bible conso
nant to the originall Greeke and Hebrew and set forth without
note, for that some of them enforce a sence further then the texte
will beare. For where it is sayd that Asa deposed his mother
Maacha; some haue it in the margent, that he shold rather haue
put her to death, and accordingly, (sayd his Majesty) some in
Scotland upon that ground woold haue had him in such sort to
haue proceeded agaynst his grandmother which he liked not of.
Then 31ie amongst those things which appertain to puritie of
doctrine, Doctor Reynolds moued that there might be a more per-
fecte Chatechisme, made for the instruction of all sorts, aswell
in the misteries of the Lordes supper, as of Baptisme, and all
other things needefull, whereunto it was readyly yelded. Fourth-

345

APPENDIX

ly, as appertayning to the preservation of the purity of doctrine,
he also moued that popish books, might not be brought into the
land, and so freely bought and sold, as they were to the cor
ruption of many. Whereto his Majesty in answer sayd, that if
he meant the 14 Quodlibetairan bookes, he was to understand
that they were written by suffrance of the Councell of state; to
this ende that when the Jesuits imbusied themselues to set on fote
the Spanish title in England, the seminaries were stirred up to
crosse them. But Doctor Reynolds signified to his Majesty that
he meant (not) those bookes, but such as Stella and other Friars
bookes, which manie yong men bought up before better bookes,
and not descerning rightly of thier corruptions, made use of some
things that were not sound. Where my Lo: Cecill made good
that which D. Reynolds had sayd, affirming that he was informed
that more books were bought up of that kind then of the writ
ings of the soundest men, and wished that such might be inhibited.
Whereunto his Majesty did condescend and further gaue order
that if any such were brought ouer they shoold be solde to none
but such as shoold be allowed to haue them to good use to con
fute the aduersary.

Then followed the 2 generall poynt propounded by D. Rey
nolds touching the ministery, that such might be ordayned thereto
as were able to instructe the people, and were unblameable life,
and the contrary remoued: and nonresidence and pluralytie of
benefices reformed. Whereto the Kings Majesty answered, that
the former day he had dealt with the Bishops concerninge the
same, and that he meant that these that were unable for the
ministerye and had long liued therein, shoold be charitably pro-
uided for, and other appoynted to preache in theyr roome : but the
scandalous forthwith to be remoued from the ministery, and
learned and well qualified men to be placed for them in all haste,
anc[ those that are of best gifts and knowledge transposed to the
places popishly giuen, and where most recusants are; and able
men for the worke of the ministery hereafter to be taken into the
ministery, and that the non residents shall be called home to
feede their flockes, Sabathely, and that dubble beneficed be resi
dent upon one of their benefices, and keepe a preacher upon the
other and not to haue them far asunder, but that if they preach
this Sabbath at one of their cures, they may be able to preach at

346

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

the other the next Sabbath, and if they be further distant asunder
that they mayntayn one qualified to preach, and of that sorte
to be as few as may be. Here the Bishop of London seking to
stoppe the good motions of D. Reynolds, on his knee moued his
Majesty that the ministers may be bound to say all the ap-
poynted prayers, adding that it was nedfull we had aswell pray
ing as preaching ministers. Whereto the King answered, min
isters must be preachers els how can the people learne to pray,
secondly he moued his Majesty woold appoynt more homilies to
be made in the churche. Whereto sayd the King's Majesty we
meane to plante preachers.

And when it was moued by D. Reynolds that the ministers
might not be hardly and uncharitably dealt with all by the Chan
cellors and comissaries, and other officials, his Majesty sayd that
they shoold haue nothing to doe with the ministers, but they
shoold be subiect to their Bishops to deale with them, with the
assistance of the Deanes, and other of the grauest ministers.

Then Doctor Reynolds proceeded to the 3 generall poynt touch
ing the comunion Booke. Wherein he hauing propounded the
Baptisme of women, his Majesty told him what he and the Bishops
before had concluded upon touching the same, And so the Doctor
proceeded to the readinge of Apocryphall Scripture, which the
King sayd he saw no reason but that they might be read ad in-
formationem morum, though not ad edificationem fidei, as of an
cient time hath ben done in the Churche : Whereupon Doctor
Reynolds alleadged that there were sundry errors therein con
trary to the Cannonicall Scripture. And so he propounded one
or two places which he sett downe to the Bishops of the which
after that his Majesty had very learnedly argued, he yelded that
all such parts as had errors shoold be taken out. and others of
them more sound read, which may best serue for explanation of
Scripture and instruction to good life. And so his Majesty ap-
poynted Doctor Reynolds to giue up to the Bishops a note of the
erronious places.

And then Doctor Reynolds proceeded to the confirmation of
children, which he thought to haue no sufficient warrante of
Scripture nor profitable use and hereupon some of the Bishops
tried to drawe it from the Apostolique imposition of hands in the
miraculous gifte of the Holy Ghost, the King gaue not approval!

347

APPENDIX

thereunto, and then they alleadged the 6 cap of the Hebrewes
verse 2 where after the speech of chatechising there is mentioned
of the doctrines of imposition of handes, as subsequent in prac
tice thereunto. But the Doctor shoewed that it might be more
probably be understood of imposition in confering the gifts of
the holy ghost or in the ordination of ministers, both which it
was requisite for the people to know, rather then any such matter
as Chatechising, whereof we haue otherwise no proofe. And then
his Majesty required Doctor Reynolds to shew how he woold haue
it reformed, he answered that it might well be refered to the
seuerall pastors, by whom they are chatecized, to examine and
aproue of their fayth, and fitness to proceede further to the com-
municatinge the supper of the lord. But the King's Majesty
here affirmed that he smelt whereunto that tended, to make euery
one in his cure to be Bishop which he liked not of, but sayd he
woold haue the pastors of euery place to chatechise them. But
the Bishops shoold haue the triall and approuall of them. And
so he woold haue the Confirmation to be termed an examination
of the childrens fayth.

And from thence they proceeded to the ceremonies of the sur
plice and signe of the Crosse in Baptisme, both which the King
thought might be ordayned by the Magistrate being things in
different, and so might be used, as Paule did the purification,
Acts 28 and 21 Chap, of which nature though they yelded these
Ceremonies to be, yet they thought them not meete to be used in
respecte of the offence of the weake which reason Mr. Knew-
stubbes urged from Rom. the 14th and Cor. 1. 8th whereto the
King answered, that the ministers were not to be supposed such
as were weak in knowledg, and therfore not to be so much res
pected for their offence. Where Mr. Knewstubbes explaned him-
selfe, that he did not so much meane their weaknes in knowl
edge as in conscience, and the weaknes of their people. But his
Majesty thought, if they had knowledge, they might in tyme sat-
isfie theyr owne conscience and informe their people. And fur
ther his Majesty here added, that if the churche were now to be
founded a new there was consideration to be had of the ordayn-
inge of things offensiue, but in an established churche, it were
dangerous to innouate things so long before ordayned, adding
that to refuse them being imposed by authority he thought to

348

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

sauor strongly of Anabaptistry. Other reasons were used agaynst
them by the Doctor and the rest, to wit that they were significa-
tiue ceremonies in respect whereof they hold them the more un-
lawfull to be ordayned in the Gospell. But his Majesty gaue in
stance that the liftinge up eies and hands, bowing knees etc. are
significant ceremonies and yet used in the gospell, and so might
these: adding that he cold not see it proued by Scripture, that
significatiue ceremonies might not now7 be ordayned. Reasons
likewise were obiected by some of the councell especially by the
Lo: Admirall, that lay men ought to weare different apparell for
orders sake accordingly, as the same ar prescribed by authority.
The which being yelded unto by the Doctor he inferred that so
ought the ministers to obey also. Whereto Doctor Reynolds an
swered that in ciuill use the ministers were to weare apparrell
prescribed, but not such ceremoniall garments, in the acte of gods
worship and seruice. And here then was something spoken of
the different apparell of the Apostles, but no certeynty made
thereof. His Majesty replied that before the times of popery
such white garments were used in the diuine seruice of god by
the ministers, whereunto Doctor Reynolds answered that there is
indeede mention of such garments used in the times of the fathers
Hierom and Chrisostom (as I remember) but as then and in those
partes, white garments were the usuall colors of dignity in ciuill
use, aswell as in Ecclesiasticall use, and that those so used in
deuine ministration were different from the other in dayly use,
onely in more - -1. And also some allegation was made that
the garments were partly paganish. Whereto his Majesty
answered that if that coold be proued, he woold further consider
of them. And so he passed on from the surplice to the Crosse.
Doctor Reynolds affirminge it to be an idoll of Popery, whereunto
the papists doe ascribe much vertue, alleadginge the verse, Per
crucis hoc signum fugiat per nil omne malignum, and therfore
now it owght to be used of Christians. Whereto the King's Ma
jesty answered that though it had been abused in popery, yet it
had no such abuse before popery, but was used in the primatiue
church by the Christians, as a testimony to the Pagans that they
reioyced in Christ crucified whom they scorned, and is so warranted
by the authority of the fathers of the greatest antiquity, before

i So in the MS.
349

APPENDIX

popery was ; and therf ore now might it also be used of us, as it is
without any opinion of necessity, or worshipe done to god by it, or
of any effectiue or authoritative ( ?) power in it, but only as a sig-
nificatiue Ceremony, adding further that he might use it aswell as
Const antine did.

Where the Bishope of London interposed saying yow can be
content to cary crosses in your purses, Agaynst which the Doctor
alleadged that although it had ben so used in those primitiue
times as a ciuill thing, yet it might not be brought into the sac
raments as indeed it was, (aswell into the one as into the other)
untill in the last booke of King Edward the 6 it was taken out of
the Sacrament of the supper, and left in the Sacrament of Bap-
tisme. yea (sayeth his Majesty) and therf ore yow will take it
out of Baptisme also. Whereof the Doctor gaue some reason, for
that thereto it was added with a word signifyinge, as a further
perfection of Baptisme which was perfecte and sufficient without
it. Whereto the King answered that we doe not there take it
as any perfection to the Sacrament or any parte thereof, but
when the Sacramente is done, it is added to shew the duty re
quired thereby of the Baptised.

Agaynst which Mr. Doctor Reynolds argued that howeuer it
might be borne with of the Christians in the primatiue times, as
in their ciuill use of it among the Pagans for a testimony that
they despised the reproache of the crosse, yet now hauing ben so
long abused to Idolatry by the papists, it owght to be utterly
abolished as the Brasen Serpent was, whereunto his Majesty an
swered that he woold retorte upon the Doctor his owne Argument
thus. It hath neuer ben abused by the papists in Baptisme to
Idolatry, ergo it ought not now to be abolyshed, as the Brasen
serpent was. Whereas the Doctor replied that it was inoughe to
make it execrable that -it had ben abused to Idolatry otherwaies.
Which his Majesty thoughte not sufficient for the abolishinge of
it in baptism, except it coold be proued that it had ben so abused
therein.

And there D. Mountegue brought a reason to proue that it might
be so added to the Sacrament for that the like was done to the
sacrament of the passouer, to wit: soure hearbes and the cup of
wine which christ dranke with his disciples thereat before he in
stituted the sacrement of his last supper.

350

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

Whereto Doctor Reynolds answered that hearbes were pre
scribed in the word, and the cup of wine he thought necessarily
implied in the appointment of that supper, for that it might not
be thought that god woold prescribe a supper to be had of bread
and meate, but that he woold. x x x l

4. Then his Majesty requiring Doctor Reynolds to proceede to
the 4th matter by him propounded towching the discipline : the
Doctor deliuered that, in the preface of the comunion booke it is
declared that the discipline of the primitiue church were greatly
to be wished, and so things appoynted in the comunion booke to
be used till the ancient discipline can be restored, and (as it is
concerned) the statutes of K. Henry the 8. K. Edwarde the 6 and
Q. Elizabeth avouched for the same purpose therfore he thought
his Majesty now might by our owne acknowledgments well pro
ceed to the establishing of the sayd discipline, which he thought
might be very agreeable to our state, if the pastors of churches
were deuided into Classes or capitula by the seuerall deaneries
and therein they to assemble themselues, euery fortnight or iii,
to heare and censure the offences comitted within their circuite :
and then a synod to be holden yearelie of many deaneries under
the Bishops ordering for determination of matters of greater
importance and so by degrees to ascende to a synode of the whole
diocesse, and of the whol prouince, and of the whol nation, as
greater and more generall occasions of the whole churche shall
import. The utility whereof for reformation of abuses now in
the officialls he layed forth (as is conceiued) But his Majesty
utterly distasting his coors sayd that this was rightly the pres-
bitery of Scotland, wherein John and William and Richard and
such like must haue theyr censure, and John will giue his vote,
as William doth for he is a godly man, and so all the matter
is ordered by simple ignorant men. Whereto sayd Mr. Knew-
stubbes if it please your Majesty he meaneth a presbitery only
of ministers and not of lay men. To whom sayd his Majesty I
kenne him well enoughe. And when I meane to liue under a
presbitery, I will goe into Scotland agayn. But while I am in
England, I will haue Bishops for I had not ben so quietly setled
in my seate but for them, adding that he had sufficiently tasted
of the mischiefs thereof of a presbitery in Scotland, ifor at the

i So in MS.
351

APPENDIX

first there they were content to strengthen themselues agaynst
their oposites with the countenance of my authority, but when
they once had ouercome their opposites, then they began to ques
tion about my authority, in a maner to hold me for no competent
iudge ouer them. Euen according as some heare in England al
ready haue begun to deale with me. ffor at the first theye prayed
for me as supreme gouernor ouer all causes and persons, but
after they began to abate their tearmes of my superiority. Ther-
fore contente yourselues in this matter for I will thinke of this
matter 7 yeares before I resolue to admitte of a presbitery, and
by that time happily I maye waxe fat and if then I thinke it be-
houefull for me to haue any to stirr me up and awaken me, I
will then haue a presbitery by me. Till then I will haue the
Bishops to gouerne the churche, and they only shall haue to doe
with the censure of excommunication being assisted with the
deanes and grauest preachers. And the officialls shall hold theyr
coorts as meere ciuill in matters of instance, and instead of the
writte de excomunicato capiendo, shall haue a writte out of the
Chancery de contumace capiendo according as it was concluded in
the former dayes conference, ffurther were diuers things spoken
of the high comission and of the oath ex ofiicio for the limitation
of the same to matters of highest scandall; which remayn further
to beset downe when the chiefe heads, shalbe published. And be
sides it was then mentioned that the best preachers shoold be
transported to the places where papists were: and a order taken
for the amending of lecture stipends. Thus that dayes confer
ence being ended at 4 of the Clocke his Majesty professed that if
better reasons coold be alleadged, he woold willingly yeld to them,
if not, then he wold haue them all agree together in one, and to
moue theyr brethren to unity in the things that we might ioyne
altogether agaynst the comon aduersary. And so his Majesty
dismissed them untill Wenesday.

Upon Wenesday when all the Bishops had bene 2 howres with
the King's Majesty he sent for the preachers,1 and ther renewed
agayn his former exhortations to unity and declared that he
woold haue the Bishops to gouerne and the ministers to obey:
alleadging that as the state of a monarch required all things to

i Such phrases as these would point the author of this account or as tho
to one of the five Puritans either as informant of the author.

352

THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE

be done by the authority of one: so coold not the one doe all
things himselfe mediately but he must needes use meanes under
him for the doing therof, wherfore if that the ministers haue an
grieuance they must complayne to the Bishop, if they coold not
find reliefe at his hand, then seeke it of the Archbishop, if of
him they cannot receiue right, then may they seeke it of my
Councell, if there reliefe cannot be founde, then must they com
to me. and I will see that they haue right. Thereupon exhorting
the ministers to carrie themselues duetifull towards their Bishops ;
and the Bishops to deale fauorable with them, and more gently
then euer they had don before, and further aduised the preachers
to perswade their brethren in the Country to unity, and con
formity. Whereupon Mr. Chadderton moued his Majesty that the
ministers of Lancashire might be fauorably dealt with in the mat
ter of Ceremonies, for that they had long ben disused there, and
the people woold take greate offence at the use of them. Where
to though some of the Bishops oposed themselues, and then a tale
was told of a preacher of the countrie that ministered the sacra
ment in a dish, to the offence of many, and thereby, as also by
the like abuses in the ministration of the Sacrament had driuen
away 500 from the Sacrament, and made 800 recusants yet the
King's Majesty yelded to the request for the ministers and people
of Lancashire: and when one of the Bishops required a time of
tolleration to be prefixed, his Majesty woold set down no time, but
sayd they shoold haue a large, and some of the Councell (by)
sayd they may haue a yeare or two.1 Thereupon Mr. Knew-
stubbes moued the like for Suffolk: but the King somewhat of
fended at the motion that he was no better understood, sayd he
might answer him with accusing him that he understood him not
generally for all. And then the Bishop of London to cut of any
further matters, sayd we haue cause to prayse god that hath
giuen us so gracious a king to sit on the throne that so had or
dered all things amongst them to all theyr comforts and besought
god that he might long sit upon his throne as Dauid and Salomon.
And then the King moued the Bishops that they shoold take
heede and deal gently and fauorably with their brethren, and
not when they were gon to use fire and sword and make a vacuum
lest the Deuill enter in. There was also speech about kneeling
i This differs considerably from Barlow 's version.

353

APPENDIX

at the receiuinge of the comunion. (but1 in what parte of the
conference it is not certaynly conceaued. Whereof the King's
iudgment was that the matter was indifferent whether they were
receiuinge standing or sitting or kneeling, so it were receiued with
reuerence, alleadging that in ffrance they receiued it sitting, in
Spayn, in Scotland, etc. And therfore he thought it meete that
such gesture therein shoold be kept and retayned in England as
had bin accustomed.

The Bishop of London either that day or the former sayde,
that there was in England some ambling comunions.

1 This parenthesis is not closed in MS.

354

A LIST OF PURITAN COMPLAINTS PRIOR TO 1604

Bancroft's treatment of the Puritans' complaints was so care
ful and comprehensive that it merits more attention than could
be allotted to it in the text. An attempt has been made to collect
here the more important gravamina and to show whether they
were rejected or accepted by the Canons of 1604. A complete
list of complaints, as well as a complete bibliography, was found
to involve a greater amount of labour than the result seemed to
warrant. After all, the excellence of the Puritan position must
be determined not by the number of times their demands were
reiterated, but by their intrinsic importance and inherent justice.
All the petitions, and indeed most documents drafted by the
Puritans, are germane to this inquiry; but the following refer
ences will suffice for all but the most exacting research. Strype,
Whitgift, I, 245, 246, 387 ; II, 6-13, 374 ; III, 47-62. Strype, Annals,
I, 502; III, part i, 135, 264, 291. Barlow's Summe and Substance
of the Conference. Usher's Presbyterian Movement, and these
tracts: An Abstract of Certain Acts of Parlement, (1584), Parte
of a Register, (1590), The Abolishing of the Booke of Common
Prayer by Reason of above fifty grosse Corruptions in it, (1605),
Certain demandes with their groundes drawne out of holy writ,
(1605).

1. Episcopacy is not warranted by Scripture and therefore
should be abolished. Rejected by the Canons as a whole.

2. There ought to be " prophesyings " or conferences of the min
isters of the district. Rejected by Canons LXXII, LXXIII.

3. The Prince may not declare of vital importance "things in
different" or compel obedience to them. Rejected by Canons I
and XXX.

4. Nothing may be retained in the Church which the Popes had
diverted from its original use as instituted by the Fathers of the
Church. Rejected by Canon XXX, and others.

355

APPENDIX

5. The greatest need of the Church is a preaching ministry.
Recognized and rules adopted to insure preaching, Canons XLII-
XLVIII, but the Puritan idea of a preaching ministry as Ban
croft understood it was rejected, Canons XIV, LIV, LVI.

6. Ministers unable to preach are not ministers, for they fail to
perform the minister's primary function. Rejected, Canon LVII.

7. The intention of the minister is not of the essence of the sac
rament, that is, he may employ the form, though he does not
approve of it, and yet not impair the sanctity of the rite. Re
jected by Canon LVII.

8. The minister should be called by the congregation, (this was
of course not believed by the party as a whole.) Rejected by
Canons XXXI-XXXIX.

9. The minister shall read the service to the people from that
part of the Church where all may hear and be edified. Canon
XIV agrees to this, but shows that the bishop would not be likely
to agree with the minister's decision.

10. The use of the sign of the cross in baptism is not according
to Scripture and is hence forbidden. Compromised, Canon XXX.

11. The use of the ring in marriage is not according to Scrip
ture and is hence forbidden. Rejected, Canons XIV, LXII.

12. There should be no saint's days or holy days, except Sunday.
Canon XIII indirectly refuses it.

13. The Apocrypha may not be read. Canon LXXX indirectly
refuses it.

14. Baptism by women and private baptism is not allowable.
Rejected by Canons XIV, XXIX, LVII, but with certain excep
tions specified in Canons LXVIII and LXIX.

15. No interrogatories ought to be administered to infants at
the baptismal service. Rejected by Canon XIV.

16. That the minister should confirm such of his parishioners as
he deemed ready. Rejected by Canons LX and LXI.

17. The minister ought to wear no surplice, cope, cap, etc. Re
jected by Canons XXIV, XXV, LXXIV, but the clergy were or
dered to wear very plain and simple dress, and it was explicitly
said that no holiness could be attributed to the garments, which
were to be used only to preserve decency and order.

18. No one ought to kneel when receiving the communion. Re
jected by Canon XVIII.

356

PURITAN COMPLAINTS PRIOR TO 1604

19. The names of certain ceremonies are objectionable, as, ma
tins, evensong, litany, advent, confirmation.

Although most of these changes were approved at the Hampton
Court Conference, and some were actually introduced into the
new edition of the Prayer Book, it could not be said that all the
Puritan demands were granted.

20. The sacraments ought not to be celebrated in private houses,
even for the dying. Rejected by Canon LXXI, but with provi
sions for limiting the practice.

21. No minister ought to be forced to subscribe to the XXXIX
Articles. Unqualifiedly rejected, Canon XXXVI.

22. Pluralities are wholly unjustifiable. ' Canon XLI enacted a
compromise, which while it rejected the Puritan demand, at
tempted to reform the abuses.

23. The oath ex officio is unlawful. The worst abuses complained
of were reformed by Canons XCIII and XCIV.

24. Excommunication as used by the ecclesiastical courts is un
lawful. Rejected by Canons LXXV and CXXII, but with an at
tempt to restrict the practice.

25. An objection, often indefinite, to the jurisdiction of the ec
clesiastical courts in general. Rejected by the last forty canons.

26. No clergyman ought to be tried by a layman as an ecclesias
tical judge. Rejected by Canon CXXII.

27. No minister ought to be summoned out of his own diocese to
answer for an offence. Granted by Canon XCIV.

28. The fees in the ecclesiastical courts are excessive. Granted,
Canons CXXXV-CXXXVI.

357

PURITAN MANIFESTOES

ADVICE TENDING TO REFORMATION

(Additional MSS. 28571, f. 199. Secretarial Copy, underlined
by another hand. )

Whereas his Majestic is informed that if he please the Bishops
he shall please all England, — (that the contrarie may appeare) it
is thought fytt by some of creditt, and neere to his Majesty that
both noblemen, gentlemen, and ministers (everie sort by them
selves) complaine of corruptions, and desire reformation in sev-
erall petitions, signed with as many hands of everie sorte as may
be procured and the same presented to his Majesty in name of
the rest.

There must be sundrie petitions of ministers of sundrie partes,
and yet but a fewe in a petition to avoyde the suspition of con-
spiracie, and the petitions to varie in woords, but agree in the de
sire of reformacon to be according to the woord, and all reformed
churches about us: Provided they do not expresslie desire the re
moving of Bishops. And in complayning of speciall grievances
as the oathe ex officio, subscription, ceremonies, especiallie of lay
men, as Chauncellors and Commissaries their medling with the
churche censures as well against ministers, as others, that they
excommunicate for small causes, as to gett money etc.

Besides these petitions, (for the iustifying of the complaintes)
ministers are to present unto his Majestic a note of Archdeacons,
Chancellors, Commissaries, Bishops, or highe Commissioners their
particulars as be materiall, and readie to be proved, especiallie
such as haue bene, synce the Kinges comming, likewise some notes
of their unlawfull and indirect favor to Papists, whoremaisters,
etc. Heere is to be wished that the Londyners by the Lord Maior
or some other good meanes would shewe themselves zealous in
this respect.

358

PURITAN MANIFESTOES

The Ministers are also to stirre up the people to a desire or a
liking of reformation, both in preaching, as in praying against
the superstitious ceremonies, and tirannie of Prelates, provyded
that it be performed in iudgment and discretion. Some of the
ministers are also to be provyded to dispute upon some proposi
tions to sett out the corruptions that be in the present Hierarchy
and Liturgie.

Also Lawyers, against the tyme of the Parlement, are to pro
vide and make readie penned Statutes tending to this purpose.
And others are to write some learned treatises against that tyme.

Lastlie whereas the Archb. saith that of 8000 benefices, there
are but 500 competent, and therefore Learned men must either
lacke competent living or else haue more benefices then one: And
whereas also Bishops make their enquirie of the number of grad
uates in the ministerie, of licensed preachers, and how often
they preache, and sithe it is knowne that many be graduates that
cannot preache, and many be licenced, that deserve for their
insufficiency to be hissed out of the pulpitt, and that yf one be
licenced in many Dioceses, he is accounted for so many preachers,
and some sett downe themselves to preache once everie Sabbath
which scarce preache once a quarter ; there would therefore to dis
cover the skirt of the highe Priest be a diligent and faithfull en
quirie made. 1°. of the nomber of benefices that be in everie Dio
cese. 2°. the valewe of them by a common estimation. 3°. the
nomber of soules to be taught of the ministers, unlearned, un-
preaching, scandalous, hauinge more benefices than one, hauing
but one, yet Non-resident, their preachinge but seldome, and un-
profitablie. What be their names, livinges and causes of non-res
idence, how often, and what manner they preache. In this in-
quirie notice would also be taken of populous townes ; and lastlie
of Bishops and Commissaries their conversation, wherein scan
dalous, 1. The Bishops preaching where, and how often, their vis
itations, whether yearelie, and to what purposes, etc.

DIRECTIONS FROM THE BRETHREN IN LONDON, 1603, 14 JULY
(Sloane MSS. 271, f. 20.)

We whose names are underwritten doe agree to make our
humble petition to the kinges majestic that the present estate of

359

APPENDIX

our church may be further reformed in all thinges needfull ac-
cordinge to the Rule of Godes holy word — and agreably to the
example of other reformed Churches which have restored both the
Doctrine and Discipline as yt was deliuered by our Saviour Christ,
and his holy Apostles — In particular we desire the removing or
reforming of the Dumbe and Idoll ministery, non residencie plu
ralities, offensive ceremonies lawelesse subscription, faultes in the
Liturgie, or the Scottishe Liturgie established, oath ex officio, ex
communication for trifles, and that by lay men and transcendant
power of Bishops.

If any thinke not good to goo so farre as the 'xample of other
churches, etc., they may staye at the first lyne or stroke yt is
made — if any thinke good to discende into particulars they may
goo beyound the second stroke — and recken vp what particulars
they please, herein we leave everye man.

Becourse the Bishops go about to make the Kinge beleve by
themselves or others, that yf he take the course yt they like, that
then he shall please the whole state.

That therfore, you would labour so many ministers, gentlemen,
and so upwarde, and commons, as you can to complaine themselves
of the violences, grevious burdens and matters of just discontent
ment laid heretofore or still vpon all in general or any one in
particular by themselves or any of their Chauncelers, Commis
saries, or any other of the Officers whatsoever.

That you would in the said your complaint touch likewise what
you knowe of their boulsteringe and keepinge in the offices of the
Church such as have bene notoriously scandalous, as also what
you knowe of their preferringe into and placinge in the said offices
base and vile men of scandalous life.

Further that you Joyne not many ministers or gentlemen to
gether in one petition, but that you drawe severall ones as you
dwell or have used together severally for the avoydinge of the
suspition of conspiracy, and that provide in the handlinge of the
word to take all manner good occasions to lett the people see what
soever is to be taken to hart, and iustly causinge discontentment,
as also from the word to prepare them to be forwarde and ear
nest in seekinge and cravinge redresse, and that these thinges be
proceeded in speedely and heedely.

360

PURITAN MANIFESTOES

ACTION OF THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE CLASSIS. JULY, 1603
(Sloan MSS. 271, f. 20 b.)

Certaine motions in the cause of Reformation, July 21, 1603

1 That Judge Yelverton be solicited by some Lettre or per
sonally to sett downe a petition to the which he, the justices and
gentlemen of the countrey may subscribe.

2 That a survaye of the ministrye be taken, and of all the
cheife grevances of the courtes candide, with the handes and wit
nesses of such as doe complaine.

3 That a Catalogue of all the Deaneries or Hundredes be
taken, Mr. Barbon and Mr. Binx will helpe therin.

4 That man bringe his true knowledge of all such matters in
writinge to Mr. Catelyne, Mr. Stone and Mr. Barbone, and they
to communicate one with another, and this with all possible
speede, and yf it may be, by this day 3 weekes, and for the better
attayninge to this to consult with the godly in the same parishes,
or the parishe next adjoyninge.

5 In the viewe of the ministery, enquire out 1. Dumbe min-
isterie and who made them. 2. Under who they serve and what
they have for their paines. 3. The non-residentes, and where
they live, and who supplye their places. 4. Pluralities and how
many Livinges they have, and howe farre distante, and the val
uations. 5. Howe offensive in life, and howe longe they have con
tinued soe notwithstandinge all courtes of reformation, although
they have bene presented. Added, To procure a note of all such
parsonages as by the late Bishops have bene impropriated and
leased out for a longe tyme, wherby the ministers maintenaunce
is decayed. Item. What Incumbentes have compounded with the
Patrons at their entraunce for part of their livinges wherby the
Patrones enjoye the benefite that might maintayne a preacher.

6 Item, that there be 2 ministers chosen for Northamptonshire
to prosecute these causes at the Parliament, by common advice
and consent, their places supplyed, their charges borne.

7 That supplication be made by the ministers to the Knightes
and Burgesses of this shire to request and charge them to stand
and further Reformation everye way so farre as god hath given

361

APPENDIX

them light, as the dumbe ministerye, non-residencye, commis
saries, courtes, etc.

8 That the ministers of Northamptonshire, doe charge the
Bishops whosoever be clarkes of the convocation that they have
god before their eies, and not to strive against their consciences
to maintayne knowen corruptions.

9 That according to the patterne of a supplication of Mr.
Dudley Fenners, the ministers of the same shire make a supplica
tion, and offer it at the convocation dore, or proffere it by some
of the house, witnesse beinge taken.

10 That everye minister not only by publique preaching doe
urge Reformation, but also by worde and lettres doe labour the
same, and also that the Bishops and Deanes be solicited by them
that have acquaintaunce with them keepinge true copies of their
lettres.

11 That for all these supplications, Mr. Cateline, Mr. Stone
and Mr. Barbon take order with the advise of the brethren to
procure their supplications in readines, and also yt they keepe
true copies, and Eegesters of all that they doe.

12 That yf any man can informe any further matter of the
same nature, yt he certifye some one of these 3, Mr. S. Mr. C.
Mr. B. 1

This done in the presence of

John Barbon, Daniell Wight, Jonas Chaliner,
Richard Thornill, Sampson Woode, Henry Burne,
Frauncis Bradley, Henry Becke, Robert Bincks,
Robert Smart, William West, Christopher Sanderson,
William Dale, Thomas Randleson, Thomas London,
Christopher Spicer.

THE PURITANS' DIRECTIONS TO AVOYDE THE PROCEEDINGES
OF THE BYSHOPPS 2

(Additional MSS. 28571 f. 205.)

If the Busshopps proceed against any they must do it

,, ( ) they are Busshops.

ether J quatus [• I - .

j J or by vertue of the Comission.

To send out processes to cite men and to sitt in ludgment is a
i Snape, Chalenor, Barbon. 2 This is the endorsement.

362

PURITAN MANIFESTOES

principall parte of the Judgment ecclesiastical: This being by
statute 1° Elizabeth: annexed to the crowne, is an especiall pre
rogative Regall: howe this statute 25 Henry 8 cap. 2° dothe leue
the Busshop such priuiledges onely as are not preiudiciall, to the
prerogative Royall or to the lawes and statutes of the realme, and
uppon this grownde did the parliament, 1° Edwardi 6 enact that
all processes ecclesiasticall should be in the Kinges name: as are
the processes of the Kinges Court in the Comon Lawe.
Ob. what Authoritie is then left to the Busshopps. Qua? ad or-
dinem non quae ad iurisdiconem spectant as to ordayne, institute
etc. Wherefore if any be cited, they may appeare to avoyde oc
casion of sclander but they are in open place to protest that sith
all iurisdiccon is in the Kinge, and that by their oathe to the
supremacy they are bounde to acknowledge noe authoritie but that
which it is derived from his Majestie that therefore they doe not
appeare as of dutie nether acknowledge the Busshopps authoritie
or Iurisdiccon in ecclesiasticall causes, unlesse he haue sufficient
warrant from his Majestic under the broade scale accordinge to
the statute 1° Elizabeth Cap. 1°.

The high Comission is established by 1° Eliza: Cap. 1° and
they must proceed ether uppon the 1° Eliz. Cap 2° or uppon the
Cannons.

Towchinge the statute first it ratifieth nether the booke of
comon prayer lately corrected, nether the former that was used
in all the queenes tym, but only the booke of Ed. 6. with two al
terations specified in the statute. Whereas that which hath byn
hetherto used hath many alteracons, and therfore they cannot
proceed against any for the neglect of other of these bookes by
vertue of the statute. Secondly, that statute dothe inflicte noe
such penaltie for omission or refusall of the vestments or orna-
mentes of the ministers, and therfore none can be towched in his
lining for the surplesse by the statute, and ther is not any other
that dothe comaund it, only they may be punished for contempt
by imprisonment and not otherwise.

As for the Cannons if they shalbe confirmed and soe the high
Comission execute penaltie of them, it wilbe a verie doubtfull
poynt whether they can stretche soe farr as to putt a subiect from
his freehold, and if men putt it to the triall of the Comon lawe it
will seeme a verie hard case, for admitt that the convocacon howse

363

APPENDIX

may for breach of Church orders dispossesse a minister of his
free hold, when not any other subiect, and soe by consequent the
whole body of the Realme may (if they transgresse the Churche
Orders) be putt out of their landes and livinges, and be en
thralled to the clergy as in tymes past, which gapp will not ease-
ly be opened especially since it is graunted of all, that ecclesias-
ticall lawes doe properly tend only to the spirituall chastisements.

Conclusions uppon the premisses.

Noe Busshopp except he haue a high Comission can with any
couller of lawe proceede against a minister.

The high Comission cannot inflict any warrantable penaltie for
omission of the surplesse or the booke of comon prayer nowe ex
tant and in use by vertue of the statute.

If any be by Busshopp or Comission depriued he may notwith
standing keepe possession of his liuing untill by lawe it be tried
whether the Busshopps act can dispossesse him of his freehold.

The manner howe to keepe possession.

Lett him prouide that some one, ether wief, child, servaunt, or
freind be alwayes in the Church, and in the howse night and day,
soe noe other can be inducted. If any offer to thrust or pull him
or his out of the Church, lett him not much contend, but being
thrust out lett him goe to the Justices neere adjoyning, and de
posing before them that he was thrust out of possession, they
must of course lett him in possession agayne. If the Busshopp
shall sequester his liuinge, the lawe hath a verie direct remidie
to dissolve the sequestration.

Reasons not to subscribe besides the things that are
simply against the word of god in the booke.

Busshopps Cannons and articles are not lawe and subiectes are
to be governed by lawe.

To subscribe iveare iniuriously to discourage and reproache the
religious knightes and gentlemen of the parliament who uppon
good grownde haue labored to remoue it.1

i These lines are underlined in the MS.

364

PURITAN MANIFESTOES

It would prevent them of the good which they may doe in this
behalf the next Session of the parliament.

It would animate the Busshopps to enforme the Kinge that it
was but a fancy of his lower house to stand soe much uppon sub
scription for the ministers themselues haue yealded sauing a verie
fewe.

If many stand out it will pittie the Kinges hart to displace soe
many godly ministers, which else in a fewe would seeme singu-
laritie.

It will much dishonor god that men should subscribe to thinges
against his word. It must be a corasive to their owne consciences
and procure a curse on them and their ministry notwithstanding
the pretence of caring for the flock.

It will giue a grevous offence to the consciences of the godly,
to the strong and weake, that after soe longe tyme men should goe
backwards to popery, or at the least to idle Ceremonyes.

It wilbe a great preiudice to the obteyning of the Kinges prom
ise viz : that he would not only remove Cross and Surplesse but
alsoe subscription, if this will content men, this was accepted and
wilbe sued for.

It wilbe an idle president left to all posteritie, and preiudice
the godly that hereafter shall seeke the reformacon hereof.

365

WHITGIFT'S LETTER OF 1597 CONCERNING BANCROFT'S PREVIOUS CAREER

1597 REASONS ALLEDGED BY THE ARCHB: OF CANTERBURY

FOR DR. BANCROFT'S BEING PROMOTED

TO THE BPRIC OF LONDON.

Baker MSS. in the Library of the University of Cambridge, M.
m. 1. 47. f. 333-5. Another copy with an endorsement in what
seems to be Bancroft's own handwriting, Petyt MSS. in the Inner
Temple, London, 538. 38. f. 155. Strype, Life of Whitgift, II.

386-388.

His Conversation hath been without blame in the world, having
never been complained of, detecteth (sic) or for ought he knoweth
suspected of any extraordinary enormity.

He hath taken all the degrees of the schools as other men have
done and with equall credit.

He hath been a preacher against Popery about 24 years and is
certainly no papist. Indeed he is not of the Presbyterial faction.

Since he hath professed Divinity, he hath ever opposed him
self, against all sects and innovations.

By the appointment of Archbp Grindall, he did once visit
the Dioc: of Petr: About 12 years since, he was likewise a visit
or of the Diocese of Ely.

He was sent for from Cambridge to preach at Bury, when the
pretended Reformation was begun there, without staying for ye
magistrate as the term was then, and when the Sheriff, as he
said, could hardly get any preacher in that country, that either
would or durst oppose themselves against it.

At his being at Bury, he detected to the Judges the writing of
a Poesie, about her Matie armes, taken out of the Apocalypse but
applyed to her Highness most falsely and seditiously. It had
been sett up a quarter of a year in a most public place without
concealment. x I note these two last points, partly for the effects

i The legends were as follows : "I cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold
know thy works, that thou art neither or hot. " " Therefore, because thou

366

WHITGIFT'S LETTER CONCERNING BANCROFT

that followed of them, and because he was greatly maligned, by
no mean persons for his duty in both.

He remained with the late Lord Chancellor1 12: years at the
least for the most part in her Matie court, and was in good Rep
utation with him and often employed in sundry matters of great
Importance for her Highnes service. Since his sd Ld's death,2
he hath remained with the like credit five years almost with the
L : Archbp of Canterbury.3 He hath been one of her Matie Com
mission general, for causes ecclesiasticall throughout England,
almost 12 : years, in wch time there have been few causes of any
Importance dealt in, either at Lambeth or London wherein he
hath not been an Assistant.

He was by his diligent search the first Detector of Martin
Mar-Prelates Press and Books, where and by whom they were
printed.

He was an especial man that gave the Instructions, to her Matie
learned Council, when Martin's agents were brought into the
Star Chamber.

By his advice that course was taken wch did principallye stop
Martin and his Fellows' mouths, viz. to have them answered after
their own vein in writing.

By his diligence to find out certain letters and writing Mr.
Cartwright and his complices, their setting up their Discipline
secretly in most shires of the Realm, their Classes, their Decrees,
and Book of Discipline were first detected.

The chief Instructions were had from him whereby her Matie
learned Counsell framed their Bill and Articles against Mr. Cart-
wright and the rest in the Star Chamber.

By his letter written at the commandment of the Lord Chan
cellor to himself,4 her Majesty was thoroughly informed of the
state of the Church, how it then stood, and how far these factious
persons had impeached her Highnes authority and the Govern
ment established.

art lukewarm, and neither cold nor them commit fornication, and to eat

hot, it will come to pass that I will meat sacrificed to idols " Strype

spue thee out of my mouth. " " Not- Annals, III. pt. i. 176.
withstanding, I have a few things i Sir Christopher Hatton, Chancel-

against thee that thou sufferest the lor, 1587-1591.
woman, Jezebel, (i. e. the Queen) which 2 November 20, 1591.

maketh herself a prophetess to teach s John Whitgift.

and deceive my servants, to make * This letter cannot be traced

367

APPENDIX

By his only diligence, Penry's seditious writings were inter
cepted as they came out of Scotland, and delivered to the now L.
Keeper.1

His earnest desire to have the slanderous libells against her
Majestic answered and some pains of his taken therein wold not
be omitted, because they show his true Affection and dutifull
heart unto her Highness.

His Sermon at Pauls Cross the first Sunday in the Parliament
15872 being afterwards printed by direction from the L. Chan
cellor and L. Treasurer,3 was to special purpose, and did very
much abate the edge of the Factious.

The last Parliament, he did sett out two Books4 in defence of
the State of the Church, and against the pretended Holy Disc,
wch were liked and greatly commended by the learnedest men in
the Realm.

He hath been an especiall man of his calling that the L. Archb
of Canterbury hath used for the space of 9 : or ten years, in all
the stirs wch have been made by the factious, against the good
of the Church, wch hath procured him great dislike amongest
those who are that way inclined.

Though he hath been carefull and zealous to suppress some
sort of sectaries, yet hath he therein shewed no tyrannous Dispo
sition, but with mildness and kind dealing, when it was expedient,
hath reclaimed diverse.

Whilst he hath been occupied for 15 or 16 : yeares as hath been
expressed, 17 or 18 of his Juniors (few or none of them being of his
experience) have been preferred, eleven to Deaneries, and the rest
to Bishopricks of wch number, some have been formerly inclined
to Faction, and the most as neuters have expected5 the issue, that
so they might as things should fall out run with the time. They
that list may enter into ye consideration hereof particularly.

He hath been long in speech for ye Bishoprick of London; his
late good L. told him,6 the summer before he died, that her Ma
jesty was purposed, to have removed Bishop Elmer7 to Wor
cester and to have preferred him to London.

1 Thomas Egerton. ous Positions. ' '

2 An error: it should read, 1588-9. « i. e. awaited,
s William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Hatton.

4 « The Survey of the Pretended * Usually written Aylmer.

Holy Discipline" and the "Danger-

368

WHITGIFT'S LETTER CONCERNING BANCROFT

Bishop Elmer offered thrice in two years, to have resigned his
Bprick with him, upon certain conditions, wch he refused. Bp
Elmer signified the day before his death, how sorry he was that
he had not written to her Matie and commended his last suit unto
her Highness, viz : to have made him his Successor.

Since the death of the last Bishop,1 no man hath been so com
monly named for that place as he, nor is more generally thought
to be more fit for it.

i Eichard Fletcher.

369

VII

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Although there is no bibliography of English History during
this period, the deficiency is partly supplied by the lists of books
printed in the Cambridge Modern History, III, 821-824, 847-851,
in Makower's The Constitutional History and Constitution of the
Church of England, 504-534, and in Dexter 's Congregationalism
as seen in its Literature. The first two lists are brief but well
selected ; the latter comprises several thousand titles but is ar
ranged chronologically in order of publication, which is practi
cally equivalent to no arrangement at all. Mr. Dexter, however,
gives very reliable information about the libraries in which the
rarer tracts can be found, though the shelf marks he gives have
in some cases been changed. There are no other lists worth the
attention of the serious student.

The titles which are given here, and the critical remarks which
accompany them, have been added, not in hope of filling this
long-felt want of a good bibliography, but of assisting others who
may hereafter labor in this same field to avoid some of the pit
falls and difficulties, and to enable them, if possible, to go on from
the point where the present writer has left off. Only those books
have been mentioned which seem to be of considerable value.
Lack of space alone would forbid an enumeration of even the
titles of all the books necessarily consulted in the preparation of
this work. Most of the secondary books, furthermore, are not
worth mentioning, for they merely retell, more or less accurately,
the story told by some of the larger books.

370

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. MATERIALS RELATING TO THE WHOLE PERIOD, 1583-1610
a. Manuscripts

It is in many ways unfortunate for the student that the bulk
of valuable material is still in manuscript, but there are probably
few periods of history where more has been done to render manu
script material accessible and easy to handle. The English Gov
ernment has issued during the last half century a series of cal
endars, of which the most important in this connection are the
Calendars of State Papers Domestic, listing the documents pre
served in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London, E.
C. For this period, the series is already complete. Next in order
of importance are the Reports of the Royal Historical Manu
scripts Commission, which contain detailed information concern
ing nearly all the more important private collections. None of
these volumes is meant to relieve the searcher altogether of the
use of the manuscript itself, and only attempts to give so full an
account of its contents that he may be guided at once to those
papers which he desires to use. But many important documents
have been carefully printed in extenso in these calendars, espe
cially by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and the work
of the editors, in arranging, dating, and determining the author
ship of doubful papers, renders the Calendars indispensable ad
juncts of any research at all. In fact, the hurried student must
rely upon them altogether.

Except for a few volumes of the Calendars Domestic, the series
is trustworthy and accurate. Even the indices may be trusted.
The worst of all perhaps is the Calendar Domestic, 1603-1611. The
entries in this volume are very brief, in some cases actually mis
leading, many of the dates assigned doubtful or undated MSS.
are certainly questionable, and the index is bad.

The Calendars Foreign, Spanish, and Venetian, are transla
tions, for the most part in full, of the despatches of English Am
bassadors abroad or of foreign Ambassadors in England. All
three contain very little matter on ecclesiastical affairs and that
little untrustworthy.

The catalogues of the older MSS. at the British Museum — the

371

APPENDIX

Cotton, Harleian, and Lansdowne MSS. — are not all that could
be desired. The entries are not always descriptive, the indices
are almost useless for any student who wishes to be thorough, and
the volumes have been so often re-foliated, that it is hard to find
the document desired. Needless to add, the serious student can
not neglect any of these repositaries, least of all the private
archives. Neither the Record Office nor the British Museum (de
spite the value of their collections) contain the most important
material on ecclesiastical affairs.

For convenience I have placed here a list indicating the where
abouts of the collections referred to in the footnotes, in cases
where the MSS. is often cited and where the name is not itself a
sufficient indication of its whereabouts.

Additional MSS British Museum.

Arundel MSS. British Museum.

Ashmolean MSS Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Baker MSS Cambridge University Library.

Barrington MSS Library of the Inner Temple, London.

Congregational Library. .Memorial Hall, London.

Cotton MSS British Museum.

Egerton MSS British Museum.

Excheq. Q. R. Eccles. . . .Record Office.

Gurnev MSS ( Library of J. H. Gurney, Esq. Keswick Hall,

' } Norfolk.

Hargrave MSS British Museum.

Harleian MSS British Museum.

H tfi Id MSS i Marquis of Salisbury's residence.

' ( Hatfield, Herts.

Holkham MSS. . i at the Earl of Leicester's residence.

( Holkham Hall, Norfolk.

King's MSS British Museum.

Lambeth MSS Lambeth Palace, London, S. W.

Lansdowne MSS British Museum

Morrice MSS Dr. William's Library, Gordon Sq., London

Patent Rolls Record Office.

Petyt MSS Library of the Inner Temple, London.

Privy Council Register (MSS.) Privy Council Office, Whitehall, London.

Rawlinson MSS Bodleian Library, Oxford.

372

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Royal MSS British Museum.

Roman Transcripts Record Office.

Sloane MSS British Museum.

S. P. Dom State Papers Domestic, Record Office.

Stonyhurst MSS at Stonyhurst College, Blackburn, Lancashire.

Stowe MSS British Museum.

Tanner MSS Bodleian Library, Oxford.

The other repositories referred to are sufficiently described by the
reference itself.

b. Histories of the Church

FULLER, THOMAS, D. D. THE CHURCH HISTORY OF BRITAIN; FROM THE
BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST, UNTILL THE YEAR 1648. six parts.

For J. Williams : London, 1655, folio.

Duplicate of first edition with new title page, London,

1656, six parts, folio.

New edition with author's corrections, London, 1837, 8°.

New edition edited by J. S. Brewer, 6 volumes, Oxford,

1845. 8°.

Edition with prefaces and notes by James Nichols, 3

volumes, London, 1868. 8°.

Fuller gives in the main a narrative told in his own words, and
prints a few documents, now to be found in most cases more ac
curately printed elsewhere. The account is annalistic. He seems
to have used some of Leland's and Stow's MSS. collections, and
perhaps some of Camden's. He also derived a good deal of in
formation from oral tradition and occasionally gives a story of
Bancroft's time which he declares was told him by the man him
self. He favored the Church, but, publishing during the Com
monwealth, was forced to treat the Puritan history very circum
spectly. Strype declares Fuller inaccurate: "For the copy that
is printed in Fuller's History is like the former letter, full of
errors, additions, omissions, and without date of place, month, or
year." (Whit gift, I, 327. See also, 317, 311.)
Heylin attacked Fuller in the Examen Historicum, or, a Discov
ery and examination of the mistakes . . . in some modern his
tories occasioned by the partiality and inadvertences of their sev
eral authors, two parts. London, 1659. 8°.

373

APPENDIX

This was answered by Fuller in The Appeal of injured Innocence,
1659, folio. None the less, Fuller's History is still a book to be
reckoned with.

HEYLIN, PETER. ECCLESIA RESTAURATA : OR THE HISTORY OF THE
REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Editions, 1661, 1670, 1674 (corrected and with numerous
changes) ; Cambridge, 1849, 2 volumes. 8°

AERIUS REDIVIVUS, OR THE HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS
FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO ... 1647.

Oxford, 1670, folio. 2nd edition, London, 1672. folio.

Heylin, born in 1600, eight years before Fuller, was more nearly
a contemporary of these events. He became a great admirer of
Laud, and a great enemy of the Puritans, both of which proclivi
ties did not fail to leave clear traces in his writings. His various
books (of which these are the most important for this period)
form a reasonably complete history of the Church from the Re
formation to the Commonwealth. His books are valuable despite
their bias, because he possessed unusual opportunities for col
lecting information, and was able to talk with many contem
poraries of the events. On the whole, he gives us the adminis
trative view as it was current in the generation, 1610-1640.

COLLIER, JEREMY. AN ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN
CHIEFLY OF ENGLAND FROM THE FIRST PLANTING OF CHRIS
TIANITY TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF KING CHARLES THE
SECOND. WITH A BRIEFE ACCOUNT OF AFFAIRS OF RELIGION
IN IRELAND. COLLECTED FROM THE BEST ANCIENT HISTORI
CAL COUNCILS AND RECORDS.

London, 1708 and 1714, 2 volumes folio.

Second edition, London, 1840-1841, 9 volumes; and again,

London, 1852.

Based somewhat on Fuller, Heylin, and lesser works, Collier's
History is also based on manuscript researches in the Cotton Li
brary and other sources not now traceable.

374

BIBLIOGRAPHY

STRYPE, JOHN. WORKS. 27 Volumes.

First edition, 1694-1721.

Reprinted, Oxford, 1812-1824; Oxford, 1840-1842.

These volumes are an attempt to write a narrative history of the
Church from the Reformation to the Hampton Court Conference,
by patching together original documents and abstracts of docu
ments with more or less comment and statement by the author.
Possessed of little judgment and no literary style, Strype was
not very successful in attaining his main purpose. His narrative
is broken by so many documents, and his own comments are of
so little value, that as a history of the Church, the work is of no
consequence. Moreover, the frequent modernisation of spelling
and even of phraseology, the careless omission of quotation
marks, the failure consistently to use the third person in giving
abstracts of letters, make it impossible to accept his transcripts as
accurate. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that with all their
shortcomings, these volumes contain the most considerable amount
of material now in print on the period they treat, and will better
than any other single series repay the work of the student.

Strype used freely the Cotton MSS., Baker transcripts (both
those now in the Harleian MSS. and those at the Library of the
University of Cambridge), and probably most of Burghley's
papers now in the Lansdowne MSS. He had other manuscript
material not now forthcoming, possibly some of Stow's and Cam-
den's still unused collections. The Life of Whit gift and of
Aylmer, and the Annals of the Reformation are the most impor
tant for this period. The references in the text are all to the
Oxford edition of 1812-1824.

MAKOWER, FELIX. THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY AND CONSTITUTION
OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

(Originally published in German, a very good English
translation appeared in London in 1895.)

This book describes the history and form of the theoretical ad
ministration of the Church. It does little towards even stating
the really difficult problems. The text is too brief, the footnotes

375

APPENDIX

too voluminous and technical, to make the book readable or even
(for the ordinary student) usable. It is nevertheless a valuable
and important contribution from a man deeply learned in the
lore of the Church.

FRERE. W. H. THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE REIGNS OP ELIZABETH
AND JAMES I. (1558-1625)

Volume V of A History of the English Church, edited by
Stephens and Hunt. London, 1904.

The most recent and by all odds the best presentation of the sub
ject. It is based on a fresh study of the older authorities with
some work in the State Papers Domestic and in the British Mu
seum, and with full use of the various monographs written on the
subject. At the end of each chapter are very brief but well
chosen bibliographical comments. The part relating to the years
1590-1625 is the least well done and gets only a very short dis
tance beyond Strype, Neal, and Fuller.

c. Biographies

The student will of course use Le Neve's Fasti Anglicani, New-
court's and Henessey's Repertoriums, Cooper's Athenae Canta-
brigienses, and Foster's Alumni Oxonienses in all cases, and
particularly for obscure names.

FULLER, THOMAS. HISTORY OF THE WORTHIES OF ENGLAND, ENDEA-
VOURED BY THOMAS FULLER. Four parts.

London, 1662, folio.

New edition with notes, J. Nichols, 2 volumes, London,

1811.

New edition by P. Austin Nuttall, 3 volumes, London, 1840.

Contains a great deal of rumour and legend with some trustworthy
details not elsewhere obtainable.

376

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORDSWORTH, C. ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHY OR LIVES OF EMINENT
MEN IN ENGLAND, 1530-1689.

First edition, 6 volumes, London, 1810.
Second edition, 6 volumes, London, 1818.
Third edition, 4 volumes, London, 1837. Large Introduc
tion and additional lives.
Fourth edition, 4 volumes, 8°, London, 1853.

Chiefly valuable for printing Sir G. Paul's Life of Archbishop
Whitgift. (IV, 309-403.) The life of Whitgift by Paul, while
effusive and laudatory, contains a great deal of information about
his private life and episcopal routine not to be found elsewhere.
Paul was one of Whitgift 's confidential servants and was with
him for years.

HOOK, W. F. AN ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHY CONTAINING THE LIVES
OF ANCIENT FATHERS AND MODERN DIVINES.

8 volumes, London, 1845-52.
To be used with great care.

HOOK, W. F. THE LIVES OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY.

First edition, London, 1860-76, 12 volumes.
Second edition, London, 1875. 6 volumes.

The lives of Whitgift and Bancroft are poor and abound in minor
errors. The book must be used with great care, but is useful in
many ways.

BAYNE, PETER. THE CHIEF ACTORS IN THE PURITAN REVOLUTION.

London, 1878.

This book covers the period 1560-1670. He deliberately adopted
the dramatic method, and attempts to make the reader see with
the eyes of each character in turn. The book is interesting and
useful, though not always accurate.

WHITE, F. O., REV. LIVES OF THE ELIZABETHAN BISHOPS OF THE
ANGLICAN CHURCH.

London, 1898.

377

APPENDIX

Useful, but pretentious and neither complete nor wholly trust
worthy. It claims to be written chiefly from manuscript sources,
but no one man can do much with the manuscript sources for the
lives of so many men. Any such attempt must necessarily be
limited in its results.

d. Collections of Documents
PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTER, NEW SERIES, 1542 — (Still appearing.)

Edited by J. R. Dasent.

Published under the direction of the Master of the Eolls.

London, 1890, etc.

The last volume concerned the year 1602. But as a matter of
fact the series is almost as complete now as it will ever be for this
period, because the original register for the years 1603-1612 is
lost and only a very brief and unsatisfactory abstract has sur
vived in Additional MSS. 11402. The series is simply invaluable
for all topics of this subject.

RYMER, J. FOEDERA.

20 volumes. London, 1704-1722.

An official publication of proclamations and commissions, and
various formal papers. It contains a few of value on ecclesias
tical affairs.

ZURICH LETTERS, SECOND SERIES. CORRESPONDENCE OF SEVERAL ENG
LISH BISHOPS AND OTHERS WITH SOME OF THE HELVETIAN
REFORMERS. 1558-1603.

Edited by Rev. H. Robinson for the Parker Society, Cam
bridge, 1845, and a second edition, 1846.

These have been well printed and are very important, but are
more numerous for the early years of Elizabeth's reign than for
the later, and are more concerned with doctrine and the theo
retical form of church government than with administration and
the course of English affairs.

378

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAMBERLIN, JOHN. LETTERS DURING THE REIGN OP ELIZABETH.

Camden Society, 1861.

BIRCH,, T. COURT AND TIMES OF JAMES I.

2 volumes, London, 1848.

The cleverest and most accurate of the letter writers of the
period was John Chamberlin, and in these volumes we have his
correspondence, including letters to him as well as from him, from
about 1590 through the year 1610. Prior to 1600 the letters are
few and meagre, but from 1604-1610 they are numerous and full
of details of Court life and of London happenings which are not
only interesting but valuable. Unfortunately, they have been in
accurately printed and the serious student is advised to consult
the originals easily accessible at the Eecord Office in the State
Papers Domestic. Taken all in all, they afford the best "side
light" on the situation we have. He was inclined to sympathize
with the Puritans and the common lawyers, and was not always
respectful in his treatment of the bishops. It should also be
remembered that he often does not himself claim that his infor
mation is anything but rumour and hearsay.

GORHAM, G. C. GLEANINGS OF A FEW SCATTERED EARS DURING THE
PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND AND OF THE TIME
IMMEDIATELY SUCCEEDING, 1533-1588.

London, 1857.

An excellent and serious book, but one in which the material is
rather scattered. It contains, however, numerous letters and
documents of value, carefully printed.

PROTHERO, G. W. SELECT STATUTES AND OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL
DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE REIGNS OF ELIZABETH
AND JAMES I.

Third edition.

An invaluable book with which every student should be familiar.
It is accurate and authoritative and the preface is a remarkable
example of illuminating statement.

379

APPENDIX

GEE, H. and HARDY, W. J. DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OP ENGLISH
CHURCH HISTORY.

London, 1896.

Inasmuch as it attempts to cover the whole history of the Church,
the space available for this period was small. It reprints a few
well known documents.

PERRY, G. C. VOX ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE ON THE CHURCH, MINISTRY,
AND SACRAMENTS. A SELECTION OF PASSAGES FROM THE
WRITINGS OF THE CHIEF DIVINES OF THE CHURCH OF ENG
LAND.

London, 1868.
Useful.

Numerous volumes of State Papers have been printed re
garding the reigns of Elizabeth and James I of which the best
are: Birch's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; Forbes,
Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Elizabeth;
Haynes's, Murdin's, Sadler's, Sydney's State Papers; Wright's
Queen Elizabeth and her Times; and Win wood's Memorials. They
are all books to reckon with, but are concerned on the whole with
foreign affairs and political history.

e. General Histories and Secondary Books

GARDINER, S. R. HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF
JAMES I. TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR.

10 volumes, London, 1884. Volumes I and II.

By all odds the best and fullest account of the period. It is re
grettable that the important political and parliamentary happen
ings should have left so little space for ecclesiastical history. Even
this space, Dr. Gardiner felt compelled to devote almost entirely
to the political side of ecclesiastical affairs and was therefore very
little concerned with the Church as an institution.

SPEDDING, JAMES. THE LETTERS AND LIFE OF FRANCIS BACON IN
CLUDING ALL HIS OCCASIONAL WORKS. . . . NEWLY COL-
380

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LECTED AND SET FORTH IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER WITH A
COMMENTARY BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.

London, 1861-1874. 7 volumes.

Invaluable and authoritative. The letters and papers have been
carefully printed and the comments, though sometimes wordy and
overingenious, add considerably to our knowledge of the period.
It is especially clear and good upon legal and parliamentary mat
ters, but has little or nothing regarding the crucial years, 1608-
1609.

HALLAM, H. THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

2 volumes. 1827.

A remarkable book in its day and one still to be reckoned with,
despite the new material brought to light.

HUNT, J. RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION.

3 volumes, London, 1870-1873.

Useful, but hardly an accurate or complete account of English
thought.

GWATKIN, H. M., REV. (Editor). THE CHURCH, PAST AND PRESENT.

London, 1900.

A co-operative work by various hands covering the whole history
of the Christian Church. Despite its brevity, its clarity, sanity,
and insight into conditions render it a remarkably stimulating
book.

COLLINS, W. E. BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

London, 1896. (Church Historical Society.)
Interesting and good.

HAWEIS, J. O. W. SKETCHES OF THE REFORMATION AND ELIZABETHAN
AGE TAKEN FROM THE CONTEMPORARY PULPIT.

London, 1844.

Affords interesting and valuable side lights, with some biograph
ical data.

381

APPENDIX

CHILD, G. W. CHURCH AND STATE UNDER THE TUDORS.

London, 1890.

Rather rambling and disconnected, and injured by an attempt to
"write the subject down" for the laity. Moreover it is a book
with a thesis, and marred by an inexact use of terms. Neverthe
less it is stimulating.

LEE, P. G. THE CHURCH UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Two volumes, London, 1880.
Second edition, London, 1892.

He pays especial attention to the Catholics, but gives little besides
martyrology. He assumes frankly the ultra-high-church view.

BLUNT, J. H. THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, ITS
HISTORY, PRINCIPLES, AND RESULTS.

First edition, London, 1868.

Second edition, London, 1869.

Third edition, London, 1874.

Fourth edition, 2 volumes, London, 1878.

Fifth edition, London, 1882.

He has attempted to trace precedents for some part of the "con
stitution," but not very thoroughly. It is a work of great labour
but is marred by a very evident high-church bias, and by a thesis,
frankly espoused, that the real Churchmen were driven from their
places by the Puritans in 1560 and regained control only under
Laud. He slights the period 1583-1610 as if its story were a part
of the Dark Ages.

DOWDEN, EDWARD. PURITAN AND ANGLICAN.

London, 1900.

The author aims to make clear the essential ideas underlying re
ligious and literary thought at this epoch. While a piece of lit
erary criticism rather than a piece of historical exposition, it is
a remarkable performance, and an unusually stimulating book.

382

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HENSON, H. HENSLEY. STUDIES IN ENGLISH RELIGION IN THE SEVEN
TEENTH CENTURY.

London, 1903.
Valuable.

WAKEMAN, H. O. CHURCH AND PURITANS, 1570-1660.

London, 1887.

The best of a number of rather commonplace and inaccurate
manuals.

II. MATERIALS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE

HISTORY

a. Manuscripts

The bulk of the manuscript material on the constitutional and
administrative history of the Church is simply enormous and is
still largely unexplored. Indeed, lack of the most primitive sort
of chronological arrangement at most of the bishops' registries
makes it physically impossible for a single student to survey the
whole field without many years of labour. Besides the innumer
able official records, of which the Visitation Records and Consis
tory Court papers are the most valuable, there are a multitude
of letters concerning administrative matters at Hatfield House,
at Lambeth Palace, at the British Museum, and in the State
Papers Domestic. Many of these are trivial and considered alone
are of no value, but in the aggregate they form an exceedingly
important record, which will give us definite information about
many things when a sufficient number of monographs have ex
ploited its contents in detail. There are no manuscripts for this
period at Fulham Palace, almost no records at the Bishop of
London's Registry, and few papers of any value at St. Paul's.
Puritan zeal plus the Great Fire effectually wiped out the story
of the diocese of London. On legal and financial issues, the Ex
chequer Documents at the Record Office contain a valuable but
very miscellaneous and incomplete set of original papers and pro
cesses. A number of similar official documents illustrative of
routine administration found their way into the volumes of State
Papers Domestic. They are badly indexed and not easy to find,

383

APPENDIX

but are worth the trouble. On legal and constitutional issues,
there are also important papers in the Petyt MSS. in the Inner
Temple.

It is perhaps necessary to explain why no account has appar
ently been taken in the chapters on the condition of the Church
of a vast number of papers which seem at first glance trustworthy
and pertinent. In all these various respositories, are lists of par
ishes, contemporary statements of the number of pluralists, of
nonresidents, of parishes whose presentation was owned by King
or Archbishop, and so on — material which prima facie is precisely
what we most desire. The great obstacle to its use is, however,
its. untrustworthiness. The figures are usually so palpably inac
curate and incorrect that they cannot be accepted as even a basis
for guess-work. The science of book-keeping was non-existent,
and the knowledge of arithmetic so rudimentary, that even such
acknowledged financiers as William and Robert Cecil could not
be sure of adding a column of twenty figures correctly. The work
of clerks, where we can test it, was worse. How, then, can we
accept a sheet of figures as accurate, each item of which must
necessarily depend upon a dozen computations not given, when
the final addition of the twenty is outrageously wrong? We have
dozens of statements in detail of the number of benefices in each
county or diocese, which vary in total from 8000 to 9500 par
ishes for all England, and none of which have been correctly
added by their compiler. In some cases where the lists nearly
coincide the totals reached by contemporaries vary from 500 to
1000. The number of parishes given for the various dioceses dif
fers widely in different lists: one account assigns the diocese of
Lincoln 1155 parishes; another gives 1691, adding that there were
1150 preachers in the diocese. The same two lists reversed the
proportions for the diocese of Norwich, the first reading 1121, and
the second, 733 parishes, while another, possessed, for all we could
tell from its face, of equal authority, assigns Norwich 1421. Yet
in these instances, facts were in question which should have been
as accurately and easily ascertained in official circles as anything
that could be mentioned, for the number of parishes actually
varied very little between 1530 and 1640. If contemporaries
could not agree on the number of parishes in England, how can
we expect them to provide us with uniform and accurate estimates

384

BIBLIOGRAPHY

on such admittedly debatable and difficult matters as the number
of preachers, pluralists, nonresidents, and impropriators ?

The contemporary figures besides their arithmetical faults are
manifestly incomplete. A paper in Additional MSS. 14289, f.
115-123, for instance, which purports to give the number of bene
fices which the King controlled, sets the total number of cures in
the diocese of Lincoln at 328, which we know to be only a por
tion of the whole, so that its figure of benefices under royal con
trol must necessarily be wrong. Another paper allots the King
29 benefices for all England. While these are extreme illustra
tions, they by no means stand alone.

Quite as troublesome and perplexing is the general lack of
dates for all these papers of statistics . Nor can they be dated by
the usual recourse to Le Neve, Henessey, or Foster. As Le Neve
includes only the higher clergy, as Henessey and Newcourt are
limited to the diocese of London, while Foster and Cooper have to
do only with collegians, all are manifestly of small value for dat
ing lists of purely parochial clergy, for lists in all dioceses except
London, and for men of whom the great majority never saw
either university. There are other more cogent objections to most
of these lists, which, if prima facie accurate, would have still to
be used with great care. Some lists cover the dioceses, others con
cern only counties, and, as is self evident, the two by no means
coincide. What, too, was meant by a parish, any benefice with
cure of souls; any to which a right of presentation existed and to
which a stipend was attached; every one which was served by a
separate clergyman, with the omission from the count of all cures
held in plurality, of those legally united or merged, and of all
vacant cures? In other words, are we counting men or positions,
and in the former case do all situations in the Church count as
benefices — curacies, lectureships, readerships, private chaplaincies,
licensed preachers without fixed abode, and so on. Are the
cathedral clergy and episcopal officers counted or not where the
comparative statistics of learned and ignorant men are given?
Are their incomes also reckoned in the general total of the dio
cese? Does a rector holding two benefices count as two men or as
one? The Bishop of Llandaff and the Bishop of Rochester both
held some eight or ten rectories in commendam: do their qualifi
cations appear in the statistics or are those of their curates given?

385

APPENDIX

We read statements of ecclesiastical incomes, and are usually not
sure whether the gross or net income is before us. Probably we
may safely assume in most cases that, unless something is said to
the contrary, it is the gross income, but we would rather know
than be forced to guess.

With some few exceptions, the whole of this material has been
rejected as worthless and misleading. From its statements any
thing at all can be "proved" about the condition of the Church
and of the clergy. It supports both sides of nearly every argu
ment with nearly an equal amount of material. No doubt some of
it was produced by controversialists on purpose to mislead the
other party, but the efficient cause of most of these hideous blun
ders lay in ignorance of the simplest processes of arithmetic.

Of the documents left after these sweeping conclusions, the
statements of bishops and other clergy to the Privy Council or to
the archbishop seem always more trustworthy in regard to the
state of Church and clergy than the complaints of either Puritan
or Catholic. The bishop was no doubt a prejudiced witness in
favour of the Church, but e fortiori the Puritans and Catholics
were prejudiced against it. If we never accept any testimony ex
cept that of a man unlikely to be prejudiced, we shall have very
little indeed to work with, for every contemporary might have
been and usually was prejudiced on one side or the other. The
bishop, however, was certainly in a position to know the facts,
and, whatever the eagerness of Puritans and Catholics to tell all
they knew, we have as yet to demonstrate that they knew any
thing to tell, or had even reasonably good opportunities for ac
quiring any information, supposing that they sought diligently
for it. Moreover, the bishop's reports to the Privy Council or to
the archbishop for transmission to the Privy Council were prob
ably as accurate as he could make them; that body rewarded
mendacity and concealment with severe and speedy punishment.
The bishop's clergy lists and consignation books may be wrong,
and they are certainly in many ways incomplete and fragmentary,
but he was the person who should have known, and, whatever
their shortcomings, his records are the best evidence we possess.
From them, then, the figures and tables cited in the text have been
for the most part compiled. Those who wish to verify the present
writer's results should bear in mind that few people who are re-

386

BIBLIOGRAPHY

quired to fit into a few fixed categories a very large number of
individual cases, Avill spontaneously adopt precisely the same clas
sification, and that therefore a slight variation in the count must
be expected. In going through page after page of musty paper
books closely covered with semi-illegible writing, it is easy to skip
an entry, and the writer fears, that despite his care, certain minor
inaccuracies have crept in. The general result, however, he ven
tures to believe will stand. After all, in so difficult a question as
the condition of any institution in the sixteenth century, it may
well be doubted whether the past has left us any records that will
yield after any amount of work and study, more than compara
tively general and confessedly incomplete approximations of the
truth.

b. Printed Books

SPARROW, ANTHONY. A COLLECTION OP ARTICLES, INJUNCTIONS, CAN
ONS. WITH OTHER PUBLICK RECORDS OP THE CHURCH OP
ENGLAND. . . . PUBLISHED TO VINDICATE THE CHURCH.

London, 1661, 4° ; 1671, 4° ; 1675, 4° ; 1684, 4°.

A remarkable work at the time it was made, it has been largely
superceded by Wilkins and Cardwell.

WILKINS, DAVID. CONCILIA MAGNAE BRITANNIAE ET HIBERNIAE A
SYNODO VEROLAMIENSI A. D. CCCCXLVI AD LONDINENSEM A.
D., CI010CCXVII. ACCEDUNT CONSTITUTIONS ET ALIA AD HIS-
TORIAM ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE SPECTANTIA. a DAVID WIL
KINS, S. T. P., Archidiacono Suffolciensi, et Canonico
Cantuariensi, collecta.
Londoni, 1738. folio.

This remarkable work is composed wholly of documents, most of
which have been taken from the Archiepiscopal Registers at Lam
beth. He also used Spelman's and Sparrow's collections, and
Strype's Works which had just appeared. He had some manu
script material, chiefly from Bancroft 's MSS. in the Bodleian,
and also manuscript notes of Milo Smith on the sessions of Con
vocation which are invaluable since the loss of the Register of de
bates in that body. The work has been very carefully done, and
although the spelling has been often modernised, the documents

387

APPENDIX

have been very accurately printed. A comparison with the Reg
isters of Whitgift and Bancroft shows that nothing material has
been omitted. In fact, the book is as nearly trustworthy as any
book of that stamp can ever be. It does not contain, however, by
any means a complete set of documents for any period of any
sort, least of all for the period 1583-1610.

CARDWELL, EDWARD. DOCUMENTARY ANNALS OF THE REFORMED
CHURCH OF ENGLAND BEING A COLLECTION OF INJUNCTIONS,
DECLARATIONS, ORDERS, ARTICLES OF INQUIRY, ETC. FROM
THE YEAR 1546 TO THE YEAR 1716. WITH NOTES HISTORI
CAL AND EXPLANATORY.

Two volumes, Oxford, 1839, 8°.
Second edition, Oxford, 1842, 8°.

SYNODALIA. A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES OF RELIGION, CAN
ONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF CONVOCATION IN THE PROVINCE
OF CANTERBURY FROM THE YEAR 1547 TO THE YEAR 1717,
WITH NOTES.

2 volumes. Oxford, 1842. 8°.

A HISTORY OF CONFERENCES AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS CON
NECTED WITH THE REVISION OF THE BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER FROM THE YEAR 1558 TO THE YEAR 1690. With

appendix.

Oxford, 1840. 8°.

The size and expense of Wilkins's book militated against its use
fulness. Cardwell reprinted much the same material, with some
additions, in smaller volumes. He reprinted some further mate
rial from Strype and Fuller, and added still more from manu
script. On the whole his books are all well done and are extremely
useful.

DAVEY, W. H. ARTICULI ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE, OR THE SEVERAL
EDITIONS OF THE ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AS
AGREED UPON IN CONVOCATION AND SET FORTH BY ROYAL
AUTHORITY DURING THE REIGNS OF KING EDWARD VI AND
QUEEN ELIZABETH, ARRANGED IN ONE COMPARATIVE VIEW.

London, 1861.

388

BIBLIOGRAPHY

COLLINS, W. C. CANONS OF 1571 IN ENGLISH AND LATIN, WITH NOTES.

Publications of the Church Historical Society, no. 40. Lon
don, 1889.

The notes are meagre and not very valuable.

THE ORDERS OF 1586.

A bibliography of these Orders is in Gorham, Reformation
Gleanings, 496-497.

THE CANONS OF 1604.

EDITIONS: 1604, in English and in Latin; 1612; 1616;
1628 ; 1633 ; 1662 ; 1665 ; 1673 ; 1676 ; 1678 ; 1683.
1869. With historical introduction and notes critical
and explanatory, by Rev. C. H. Davis.

The notes relate rather to the later history of the Canons than
to their origin; lack comprehensiveness, and are not really ex
planatory of either legal or constitutional difficulties.

1874. The Constitutions of the Church of England
referred to their original sources and illustrated with
explanatory notes, by E. C. W. Mackenzie.

He has not been careful to draw the line between what is really
precedent and what is merely an example of a similar sort of
regulation. Some of his comparisons are over ingenious and un
convincing. Like that of Mr. Davis, his work is rather super
ficial.

JOYCE, J. W. ACTS OF THE CHURCH, 1531-1885. THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND HER OWN REFORMER, AS TESTIFIED BY THE RE
CORDS OF HER CONVOCATIONS. WITH APPENDIX CONTAINING
LEGAL INSTRUMENTS ANCIENT AND MODERN.

London, 1886.

ENGLAND'S SACRED SYNODS. A CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF

THE CONVOCATIONS OF THE CLERGY.

London, 1855.

LATHBURY, THOMAS. HISTORY OF CONVOCATION TO 1742.

First edition, London, 1842.
Second edition, London, 1853.
389

APPENDIX

ENGLAND'S INDEPENDENCY UPON THE PAPAL POWER HISTORICALLY
AND JUDICIALLY STATED BY SIR j(ohn) o(avies) and SIR E(dward)
c(oke).

London, 1674.

ANDREWES, LAUNCELOT. THE LIMITS OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY IN
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

London, 1877, 1884. Extracted and translated from the
Tortura Torti, London, 1609.

AMOS, A. OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATUTES OF THE REFORMATION
PARLIAMENT IN THE REIGN OF KING HENRY VIII.

London, and Cambridge, 1859.

FULLER, M. J. THE THRONE OF CANTERBURY, OR THE ARCHBISHOP 's
JURISDICTION.

London, 1891.

THE ELIZABETHAN ACT OF UNIFORMITY.

London, 1899.

THE COURT OF FINAL APPEAL, OR THE APPELLATE JURISDIC
TION OF THE CROWN IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.

London, 1865. (no index.)

These three books by Fuller are a sample of modern controver
sial literature, and while they evince no great learning nor acu
men and are on the whole uncritical, they do give the student
some idea of the position which great parties of the present day
take upon some issues of history.

HUTTON, S. F. THE PRIMACY OF ENGLAND.

Oxford, 1899. (no index.)

Contains reprints of some important documents, and considerable
detail on titles, precedence, and a number of minor matters.

ABRAHAM, W. H. CHURCH AND STATE IN ENGLAND.

London, 1905.

390

BIBLIOGRAPHY

III. MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF THE PURITANS
IN ENGLAND

a. Manuscripts

The manuscripts for Puritan history are voluminous in number
but not correspondingly valuable. The bulk of them are con
nected in some way with the sufferings of the sect, actual or an
ticipated, and are mainly the reiteration of much the same thing.
There are scores of copies of the same petition or of nearly the
same petition; there are hundreds of letters retailing very much
the same grievances to different officers of state; the charges
against the bishops are equally numerous and equally stereotyped.
But solid first hand material for the narrative and constitutional
history of the party is more difficult to find. The former type
of material abounds in the Morrice and Baker MSS., in the State
Papers Domestic, and in the Additional MSS. at the British Mu
seum. The latter is to be found in small quantities amidst the
chaff of these repositories, and more plentifully in the Gurney,
Hatfield, and Sloane MSS. Much is to be gleaned from the Vis
itation Records, though of a disconnected nature. There are a
few valuable papers at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Much val
uable information may be sifted out of the numerous rare tracts
preserved at the Museum and Bodleian. The most tiresome theo
logical argument and the most commonplace petition often con
tains a nugget of fact or a list of names well worth the time
and trouble to read it.

&. Printed Books

The printed histories of the Puritans are for the most part
uncritical, and based almost entirely upon one or two prototypes.
The lengthy list printed by Dexter in his Congregationalism as
seen in its literature makes the inclusion here of more than a few
titles a work of supererogation. First and foremost stands

NEAL, DANIEL. THE HISTORY OP THE PURITANS OR PROTESTANT NON
CONFORMISTS, FROM 1517 TO 1688, COMPRISING AN ACCOUNT
OF THEIR PRINCIPLES.

391

APPENDIX

Four volumes, London, 1732-1738. 8°.
Second edition, corrected, London, 1754, 2 volumes, 4°.
Same, Dublin 1755, 4 volumes. New edition, revised, cor
rected, and enlarged by J. Toulmin. To which are pre
fixed, some memoirs of the life and writings of the author.
Five volumes, Bath, 1793-1797. 8°.

Reprinted, Portsmouth, 1818; London, 1822; and (in 2
volumes) New York, 1848.

Before Neal's work had fully appeared, it was attacked by Z.
Gray in his Vindication of the Government, Doctrine, and Wor
ship of the Church of England . . . against the injurious Reflec
tions of Mr. Neale in his late History of the Puritans, and in a
long series of more detailed criticisms called Impartial Examina
tions. In judging Neal, it is necessary to remember that his work
has been greeted with the most violent opposition on the part of
every one except those of his own party. On the whole the criti
cal historian is moved to side rather with Neal's critics than with
his admirers, but from entirely different reasons.

So far as we can learn from his brief footnotes to authorities
and his vague references and from an intensive study of the
book itself, it was based chiefly on Morrice's collections now in
Dr. Williams 's Library. Neal also used some of Baker's tran
scripts, and some other manuscript material not now traceable.
He of course had Fuller, Collier, and Strype, but considered them
prejudiced and used them less than he might have; they gave the
"Bishops' side" and he felt his evidence was better. Judging
his work simply upon the way he used the materials he had, it is
unscholarly and uncritical. His documents are inaccurately
printed when he gives them in full; when given in abstract (and
that is often), he omits much of value; when paraphrased, he
sometimes almost destroys the sense. Based exclusively upon Pu
ritan sources, his view of the subject is one sided. He pays little
attention to constitutional development or relations, except in a
superficial and annalistic way, and confines himself chiefly to
martyrology, and a list (with copious citations) of petitions and
examinations in which the Puritan was " abused. " He prints
however some documents of importance, which, though inaccu
rate in little things, are in the main correct, and which are not ac
cessible except in manuscript or equally inaccessible tracts. With

392

BIBLIOGRAPHY

all its faults, no student can afford to neglect the book, for its
place in the history of the subject is great, and its influence upon
historians and especially upon subsequent thinking has been vast.
Most secondary histories of Puritanism are Neal plus a little of
something else.

BROOK, BENJ. LIVES OF THE PURITANS.

London, 1813, 3 volumes.

This book is second only to Neal in place and influence. Its chief
source seems to have been Morrice's voluminous biographical col
lections (is not Morrice MSS. M, the "MSS Register" to which
Brook so often refers?), plus Clark's Lives of the Puritans in
manuscript, and some few original letter books and diaries. The
information he gives, is, of course, best in the period subsequent
to 1610 for which Morrice was himself a contemporary and ap
parently well posted. Brook was however anxious to make his
total number of Puritans large, and in so doing included a good
many names without sufficient warrant. He was furthermore ut
terly uncritical: every man is either "this learned man" or "this
admirable scholar, " or " this eloquent preacher. ' '

In many cases the biographical details are meagre and frequent
ly based on hearsay and rumour. Brook's fault, however, lay not so
much in colouring too highly what he knew about, for in describing
the careers of several of the better known men where he had
abundant data to work from, his statements are temperate and
by no means more than the evidence warrants ; his greatest weak
ness lay in assuming that where he knew little or nothing, the
character and ability of the Puritan was equally high. Sometimes
when he says he knows very little about a man, he goes on to
describe him in terms which only a great deal of positive evidence
could warrant. Untrustworthy as it is, the book contains a good
deal of first hand evidence from letters and diaries, and regard
ing some of the lesser known men gives the only evidence we
have.

PRICE, THOMAS. THE HISTORY OP PROTESTANT NON- CONFORMITY IN
ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION UNDER HENRY VIII.

2 volumes, London, 1836-1838.
393

APPENDIX

HANBURY, BENJAMIN. HISTORICAL MEMORIALS RELATING TO THE IN
DEPENDENTS OR CONGREQATIONALISTS FROM THEIR RISE TO
THE RESTORATION OP THE MONARCHY.

3 volumes, London, 1839.

MARSDEN, J. B. HISTORY OP THE EARLY PURITANS PROM THE REFOR
MATION TO 1642.

Second edition, London, 1853.
An excellent statement of the traditional Puritan view.

HEY WOOD, j. and WRIGHT, T. CAMBRIDGE TRANSACTIONS DURING

PURITAN CONTROVERSIES OP THE 16TH and 1?TH CENTURIES.

2 volumes, London, 1854.

HOPKINS, S. THE PURITANS DURING THE REIGNS OF EDWARD VI AND
ELIZABETH.

3 volumes, Boston, 1859.

A bigoted New England account, full of florid rhetoric.

TULLOCH, JOHN. ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

London, 1861.

DAVIDS, T. W. ANNALS OP EVANGELICAL NONCONFORMITY IN THE
COUNTY OF ESSEX. . .

London, 1863.

WADDINGTON, J. HISTORICAL PAPERS (First Series) CONGREGA
TIONAL MARTYRS.
1861.

THE TRACK OP THE HIDDEN CHURCH, OR THE SPRINGS OP
THE PURITAN MOVEMENT, 1559-1620.

Boston, U. S. 1863.

CONGREGATIONAL HISTORY.

London, 1869-1880. 5 volumes.

SURREY CONGREGATIONAL HISTORY.

London, 1866.

394

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Without question, Waddington's name must stand next to Neal's
as a maker of Puritan history. With all Neal's enthusiasm, he
was vastly better equipped, was more diligent, and more critical.
He wrote also after the opening of the Public Archives to liter
ary research, and after much had been done to render it leas
difficult. He added much information from manuscript, there
fore, and used the printed books more carefully. He was the
first consistently to trace the movement as a movement and to
make Puritan history more than a series of martyristic annals.
Less active in his ways of showing it, he was quite as intolerant
as Neal of all except his own sect, and was convinced that Con
gregationalism was the candle under the bushel which should
light the whole house. We do not yet know where the balance lies
in this struggle between the Church and the sects, but surely no
historian should start with a preconceived notion.

DEXTER, H. M. CONGREGATIONALISM AS SEEN IN ITS LITERATURE.

New York and Boston, 1880.

DEXTER, H. M. and DEXTER, MORTON, THE ENGLAND AND HOLLAND OF
THE PILGRIMS.

New York, 1905.

There can be no doubt that Mr. Dexter was the most erudite of
Puritan writers and he certainly placed all scholars under a deep
debt of gratitude to him. His critical attitude, his untiring zeal,
his eagerness to be fair, all mark a high standard of historical
scholarship. His bibliographical knowledge was unsurpassed.
But one cannot help feeling that Mr. Dexter was more familiar
with the titles and outside appearance of books, than he was with
their contents. He was the first to bring Robert Browne into a clear
light, but while he probably did not over-emphasize his importance
in the development of the tenets later known as Congregational
ism, he perhaps exaggerated his influence on the ideas and for
tunes of the general party. Again, Mr. Dexter 's interest lay more
in America than in England, and his anxiety to make clear the
causes for emigration turned his attention a little from the topics
most vital to the Puritans who stayed in England, with whom
alone the history of the English Church has to do. Mr. Dexter 's
work, therefore, was not intended to be and should not be con-

395

APPENDIX

sidered as giving more than an account of one small part of Puri
tan history.

BURRAGE, CHAMPLIN. THE TRUE STORY OF ROBERT BROWNE, FATHER
OF CONGREGATIONALISM, INCLUDING VARIOUS POINTS HITH
ERTO UNKNOWN OR MISUNDERSTOOD.

Oxford, 1906.

c. Contemporary Tracts

Despite the exhaustive list of contemporary tracts connected with
Puritanism given by Mr. Dexter in his Congregationalism, and
indeed because of the length of his list, it has seemed wise to in
clude in this bibliography a selected number of the most valuable
tracts. The titles of most of these are so long that considerations
of space have compelled their abridgement.

1582. R. BROWNE. A TREATISE OF REFORMATION WITHOUT TARYING
FOR ANIE.

1584. AN ABSTRACTE OF CERTAIN ACTES OF PARLEMENT. . .

1584. R. BANCROFT. AN ANSWER TO THE TWO FIRST AND PRINCIPAL
TREATISES ... OF AN ABSTRACT OF CERTEINE ACTS OF PAR
LEMENT. . .

1584. A DIALOGUE CONCERNING THE STRIFE OF OUR CHURCHE. . .

1585. T. BILSON. THE TRUE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRISTIAN SUB

JECTION AND UNCHRISTIAN REBELLION. . .

1590. J. PENRY (?) AN HUMBLE MOTION . . . HOW NECESSARIE IT
WERE FOR THE GOOD OF THIS LANDED AND THE QTJEENES
MAIESTIES SAFETIE, THAT ECCLESIASTICALL DISCIPLINE WERE
REFORMED AFTER THE WORDE OF GOD, AND HOW EASILY
THERE MIGHT BE PROUISION FOR A LEARNED MINISTERY.

(also 1599, 1641.)

1590. A PARTE OF A REGISTER.

(contains many very valuable tracts.)

1591. M. SUTCLIFFE. A TREATISE OF ECCLESIASTICALL DISCIPLINE.

396

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1591. E. COSIN. AN APOLOGY OF AND FOR SUNDRY PROCEEDINGS BY

JURISDICTION ECCLESIASTICAL!,. . j

1592. R. COSIN. CONSPIRACIE FOR PRETENDED REFORMATION, VIZ.

PRESBYTERIALL DISCIPLINE. . .

1593. R. BANCROFT. DANGEROUS POSITIONS. . .

1593. R. BANCROFT. A SURVEY OF THE PRETENDED HOLY DISCI
PLINE. . .
1602. 1. NICHOLS. THE PLEA OF THE INNOCENT.

1604. W. COUELL. A MODEST AND REASONABLE EXAMINATION OF
SOME THINGS IN ... A BOOKE CALLED THE PLEA OF THE
INNOCENT.

1602. i. NICHOLS. ABRAHAM'S FAITH: THAT is THE OLDE RELIGION,

WHEREIN IS TAUGHT THAT THE RELIGION NOW PUBLICKLY
TAUGHT AND DEFENDED IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, IS THE
ONELY TRUE CATHOLIKE, AUNCIENT AND UNCHANGEABLE
FAITH OF GOD7S ELECT.

1603. W. COUELL. A JUST . . . DEFENCE OF THE FIVE BOOKS OF EC

CLESIASTICAL POLICIE WRITTEN BY MR. RICHARD HOOKER.

1603. THE ANSWERE OF THE VICE CHANCELOUR, THE DOCTORS, BOTH

THE PROCTORS, AND OTHER THE HEADS OF HOUSES IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ... TO THE HUMBLE PETITION OF
THE MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND DESIRING RE
FORMATION OF CERTAINE CEREMONIES AND ABUSES OF THE
CHURCH. . .

1604. W. BARLOW. THE SUMME AND SUBSTANCE OF THE CONFER

ENCE . . .AT HAMPTON COURT. . .

(two editions in 1604; one in 1605; 1612; 1625; 1638;
1804 ; also reprinted in The Phoenix, 1707 ; the Church
man's Remembrancer, no. IV, 1805; in Cardwell's His
tory of Conferences; in extract in Wilkins, Concilia, and
elsewhere.)

1604. W. STOUGHTON. AN ASSERTION FOR TRUE AND CHRISTIAN
CHURCH POLICIE. . . .

397

APPENDIX

1604. THE REMOOUALL OF CERTAINE IMPUTATIONS LAID UPON THE
MINISTERS OF DEUON AND CORNWALL BY ONE M. T. H(UT-
TON) AND IN THEM UPON ALL OTHER MINISTERS ELS WHERE,
REFUSING TO SUBSCRIBE.

1604. H.JACOBS. REASONS TAKEN OUT OF GOD 'S WORD . . . PROUING

A NECESSITIE OF REFORMING OUR CHURCHES IN ENGLAND.

1605. AN ABRIDGEMENT OF THAT BOOKE WHICH THE MINISTERS OF

LINCOLN DIOCESS DELIVERED TO HIS MAIESTIE UPON THE
FIRST OF DECEMBER LAST. . .

(1605.) THE ABOLISHING OF THE BOOKE OF COMMON PRAYER, BY REA
SON OF ABOVE FIFTY GROSSE CORRUPTIONS IN IT. . . BEING
THE SUBSTANCE OF A BOOKE WHICH THE MINISTERS OF LIN
COLN DIOCESS DELIVERED TO KING IAMES, THE FIRST OF
DECEMBER, 1605.

(Published in 1641.)

1605. CERTAINE DEMANDES WITH THEIR GROUNDES DRAWNE OUT OF
HOLY WRIT. . .

1605. CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS DRAWNE FROM THE CANONS OF THE
LAST SINOD, AND OTHER THE KINGS ECCLESIASTIC ALL AND
STATUTE LAW. . . .

1605. S. HIERON. A SHORT DIALOGUE, PROVING THAT THE CERE-
MONYES AND SOME OTHER CORRUPTIONS NOW IN QUESTION
ARE DEFENDED BY NO OTHER ARGUMENTS THAN SUCH AS THE
PAPISTS HAUE HERETOFORE USED.

1605. T. HUTTON. REASONS FOR REFUSAL OF SUBSCRIPTION TO THE
BOOKE OF COMMON PRAYER UNDER THE HANDES OF CER
TAINE MINISTERS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. . . .

1605. G. POWELL. THE UNLAWFULNESS AND DANGER OF TOLERATION
OF DIUERS RELIGIONS. . .

1605. F. MASON. THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH IN MAKING
CANONS AND CONSTITUTIONS CONCERNING THINGS INDIF
FERENT AND THE OBEDIENCE THERETO REQUIRED.

1605. W. BRADSHAW. A PROPOSITION CONCERNING KNEELING IN THE
VERY ACT OF RECEIVING.

398

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1605. ENGLISH PURITANISMS, CONTAINEING THE MAINE OPIN
IONS OF THE RIGIDEST SORT OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED
PURITANES IN THE REALMS OF ENGLAND.

1605. A TREATISE OF THE NATURE AND USE OF THINGS INDIF

FERENT. TENDING TO PROUE THAT THE CEREMONIES IN
PRESENT CONTROUERSIE . . . ARE NEITHER IN NATURE OR
USE INDIFFERENT.

1606. H. JACOBS. A CHRISTIAN AND MODEST OFFER OF A MOST INDIF

FERENT CONFERENCE OR DISPUTATION ABOUT THE MAINE
AND PRINCIPALL CONTROVERSIES BETWIXT THE PRELATS,
AND THE LATE SILENCED AND DEPRIVED MINISTERS IN
ENGLAND.

1606. A MYLD AND IUST DEFENCE OF CERTEYNE ARGUMENTS, AT THE
LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT DIRECTED TO THAT MOST HON
ORABLE HIGH COURT IN BEHALFE OF THE MINISTERS SUS
PENDED AND DEPRIVED.

1606. CERTAINE ARGUMENTS TO PERSWADE AND PROVOKE THE MOST
HONORABLE AND HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT ... TO PRO
MOTE AND ADVANCE THE SINCERE MINISTERS OF THE GOS-
PELL. . . .

1606. ( 1} DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN OLD PROTESTANT AND A NEW FOR
MALIST, WITH REASONS WHY PREACHERS WHO REFUSE SUB
SCRIPTION SHOULD NOT BE REMOVED.

1606. R. FIELD. OF THE CHURCH, FOUR BOOKES.

(Fifth Book issued 1610.)

1606. W. COVELL. A BRIEFE ANSWER UNTO CERTAINE REASONS BY
WAY OF AN APOLOGIE ETC. BY MR. IOHN BURGES. . .

1606. G. POWEL. A CONSIDERATION OF THE DEPRIUED AND SILENCED

MINISTERS ARGUMENTS FOR THEIR RESTITUTION TO THE USE
AND LIBERTIE OF THEIR MINISTERIE. . .

1607. S. HIERON. A DEFENCE OF THE MINISTERS REASONS FOR RE

FUSAL OF SUBSCRIPTION TO THE BOOKE OF COMMON PRAYER
AND OF CONFORMITY IN ANSWER TO MR. T. HUTTON, DR. W.
COVEL, AND DR. T. SPARKE.

399

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1607. T. WHETENHALL. A DISCOURSE OP THE ABUSES NOW IN QUES
TION IN THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST.

1607. F. MASON. THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH IN MAKING CAN
ONS AND CONSTITUTIONS CONCERNING THINGS INDIFFERENT
AND THE OBEDIENCE THERETO REQUIRED.

1607. T. ROGERS. THE FAITH, DOCTRINE, AND RELIGION, PROFESSED
AND PROTECTED IN THE REALMS OF ENGLAND . . . EX
PRESSED IN 39 ARTICLES . . . AGREED UPON ... IN 1562
AND 1604. . . .

1607. T. SPARKE. A BROTHERLY PERSUASION TO UNITY AND UNI
FORMITY IN JUDGMENT AND PRACTICE TOUCHING THE RE
CEIVED AND PRESENT ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT AND
THE AUTHORIZED CEREMONIES.

1607. SIR. T. RIDLEY. A VIEW OF THE CIVILE AND ECCLESIASTICALL

LAW, AND WHEREIN THE PRACTICE OF THEM IS STREITNED
AND MAY BE RELIEUED WITHIN THIS LAND.

1608. G. DOWNAME. TWO SERMONS, THE ONE COMMENDING THE

MINISTERIE IN GENERALL. THE OTHER DEFENDING THE OF
FICE OF BISHOPS IN PARTICULAR.

IV. MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLICS IN

ENGLAND

a. Manuscripts

On few topics connected with English Church History is there
a larger bulk of material than upon Catholic problems, and it
must be sorrowfully added that on no other topic is so large a
proportion of it comparatively valueless. The sort of happening
in which we are most interested left little or no record, while the
details of the capture of some priest or the finding of some worth
less tract have been preserved to us with provoking accuracy.
True, the sort of happening we are most anxious to investigate
was precisely the sort which was least likely to leave a record, or
upon which it was highly inexpedient to commit thoughts and plans
to paper, and still more indiscreet to preserve those papers. Fur-

400

BIBLIOGRAPHY

thermore a large amount of false information was intentionally dis
seminated, not only by informers who hoped to get paid for what
they thought the State wanted to find, but by the State itself, and
by Jesuits and Seculars, Churchmen and Puritans. The amount of
guess-work, gossip, and hearsay written down and preserved is vast
and utterly unreliable.

It is also unfortunate that the recent opening of manuscript
archives to students should have produced a state of mind which
treats any manuscript authority as prima facie better evidence than
the printed material. On the history of the Catholics in England
this is by no means true. The superior accessibility of the Record
Office and of the British Museum coupled to the general excellence
of the Calendars of State Papers Domestic has fostered an opinion
that those repositories contain a representative selection of docu
ments which will in the main be sufficient for the student's pur
poses. However true that may be in some branches of English his
tory, it is by no means true in Catholic history, for in those archives
will be found rather the illustrative material than the documents
of greatest value. The student should also guard carefully against
making inferences regarding all England from letters and docu
ments written at London which do not expressly state that their
information is of broad application. Conditions in London were
not then, any more than they are now, typical of the country dis
tricts. The voluminous correspondence of ambassadors and news-
writers preserved in the Simancas, Paris, Roman, and Venetian
Transcripts and Calendars is demonstrably false on many points
and always must be used with great caution. Certainly, the longer
one studies the material on Catholic history, the clearer one sees
that any statement on any subject from any point of view can be
supported by some manuscript evidence which will at first sight
seem trustworthy. Even the holograph letters of important char
acters are apt to be misleading when taken alone. The only safety
lies in the cautious use of all available information, printed and
manuscript, good, bad, and indifferent, for one can rarely tell into
which category a document will fall until his studies approach com
pletion. After all, the point most in dispute, then and now, is
not what happened and who did it, where one claims one thing and
the other denies it (the Gunpowder Plot being a notable excep
tion), but a matter of personal attitude toward a certain sequence

401

APPENDIX

of admitted facts, a question not of their actuality, but of their
significance. Which party was most to blame, which was most un
charitable in its deeds and most malignant in its aspersions of the
other, which was the better course for England 'and the world in
general, the restoration of Catholicism or Bancroft's compromise?
On matters of general policy concerning circumstances in which so
many threads of policy are involved, where so many interests are
concerned, it is safe to assume that no contemporary, whatever his
capacity or experience was capable of arriving at as adequate a
comprehension of the situation as we now can. Everybody's state
ments must be scrutinized on every subject but particularly on
the history of the Catholics.

A great mass of papers on the enforcing of the penal laws have
been preserved in the Recusant Rolls and in the State Papers Do
mestic at the Record Office, in the Caesar Papers (Lansdowne MSS.)
at the British Museum, and in the Stonyhurst MSS. and elsewhere.
Information of great value in regard to the exact degree of en
forcement is to be found in the local judicial archives, though, as
the enforcement of the penal laws (like their enactment) was the
work of the State, the ecclesiastical officials had very little to do
with it. In connection with this work and with the various plots,
were taken a great many depositions of suspects, or persons ar
rested, of priests caught at Dover and elsewhere, which concern
every conceivable question of interest to Catholics or to the State,
and express every conceivable variety and degree of opinion about
them. The information is usually trivial and the "news" exceed
ingly untrustworthy. These categories comprehend the great bulk
of material on Catholic history, but concern rather their relations to
the State than to the Church or to each other. As yet nothing ap
proaching a complete investigation of it has been made, and, though
the task involves an enormous amount of labour, it is to be hoped
that some one will soon read all these papers and so place himself
in a position to tell us which are valuable. Certainly to trust any
one or any ten is folly.

The amount of material for the constitutional history of the
Catholics in England, their relations to each other and to the Eng
lish Church as distinguished from the State, is by no means as
considerable in bulk but is considerably more trustworthy. The
most valuable collections are in the Petyt MSS. and Stonyhurst

402

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MSS., and the papers preserved in various archives at Rome, Turin,
and Naples. An invaluable and in the main trustworthy series of
letters between Bancroft, Cecil, and the priests, is in the collection
of the Marquis of Salisbury, Hatfield House, Herts. Most of these
must be used in manuscript, for the Calendar of the Historical
Manuscripts Commission has not yet reached the year 1610. As
far as it has been published, the letters are given only in abstract
and many important details have been necessarily omitted. It must
be conceded however that this calendar is one of the best of an
excellent series.

b. Printed Books

The excellent bibliographies of books recently published on the
Catholic history of this period make a lengthy bibliography unneces
sary. Many contemporary tracts and more recent publications
have been listed with interesting comment by A. Jessop in his One
Generation of a Norfolk House, xiii-xxiii. A more exhaustive list
which contains most of the important tracts relating to this period
with valuable bibliographical information and excellent comment
is in the appendix to the Introduction of T. G. Law's Jesuits
and Seculars. John Gee, in The Foot out of the Snare, (London,
1624, 4°), listed a great many contemporary tracts. E. L. Taun-
ton 's History of the Jesuits in England has an appendix which gives
some information about the tracts of Robert Parsons. The Dublin
Review, The Month, The Rambler contain from time to time valu
able articles relating to this period by leading Catholic writers.
Joseph Gillow's Biographical Dictionary of the English Catholics
from the Breach with Rome in 1534 to the present time (London,
1885) is a useful book and in most cases accurate. For the lives of
the lesser known men, it is about all we have. The Dictionary of
National Biography contains valuable articles.

DODD, CHARLES, THE CHURCH HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM 1500-1688
CHIEFLY WITH REGARD TO CATHOLICKES.

Three volumes, folio, Brussels, 1737, 1739, 1742, (printed
in London). Edited with notes, etc, by M. A. Tierney.
London, 1839-1843.

403

APPENDIX

The appearance of Burnet's History of the Reformation, and
Strype's Works, both of which took the side of the Established
Church, started the pens of the opposing parties. Daniel Neal
championed the Puritans while at the same time the fortunes of the
Catholics were described by the Reverend Hugh Tootle, who pre
ferred to write under the more euphonious pseudonym of Charles
Dodd. Tootle had a good deal of assistance in procuring material
both from official and from private Catholic archives and pro
duced a book which will easily bear comparison with the work of
his contemporaries. If less learned than Strype, he was at once
more erudite and more impartial than Neal, though both were pre
judiced enough from a modern critical standpoint. There was how
ever much that he failed to discover, and he made many mistakes,
which led to a new edition by M. A. Tierney, during the second
orgy of ecclesiastical researches in the 1830 's and '40 's. Tierney
practically remade the book and his footnotes, containing quota
tion from many manuscript sources, are now the most valuable part
of it. He had access to the Stonyhurst MSS. of many of which he
made good use, though he by no means exhausted that rich col
lection, but his chief source of additional information came from
manuscripts which he himself possessed, many of which he declares
were the originals. Where these are is not now known, and inas
much as they furnish us practically our only information on many
points, Tierney 's book becomes in the meantime a source of high
value. Our confidence is increased by the fact that he seems to
have handled his documents carefully, and reproduced them faith
fully. His arrangement of them, however, is often confused, and
as a narrative account of the subject the book even as remade is of
little interest and no value. Tierney 's volumes are a mine of in
formation, not a history. As a secular priest, he possessed some
animus against the Jesuits which not only in his comments, but in
his selection of material, made pretty distinct appearance. Consid
ering how long ago he wrote, and his attempt to be fair even to
Churchmen and Puritans, his History is as nearly invaluable to the
student as any one book on the period, and is as nearly trustworthy
(as far as we can now tell) as any of the books of his time.

404

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHALLONER, RICHARD. MEMOIRS OF MISSIONARY PRIESTS.

Many editions, the best, edited by T. G. Law, was published
at Manchester, 1878.

A contemporary of Tootle, Challoner was not by any means as
well informed and was far more openly a partisan. He attempted
to depict vividly the sufferings of the priests, to stir the Catholics
to commiseration by his comments, and incidentally tried to blacken
the character of a good many English bishops, particularly Ban
croft's. Much of his "information" is hearsay and rumour; some of
it is vulgar scandal; none of it is worthy of credence without cor-
roboration. His book holds, however, a place of some importance in
the list of volumes on English history written by Catholics.

LINGARD, JOHN. HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

10 volumes, London, 1819-1830. (Many editions).

In his eager search for truth and his calm impartiality, Lingard
has never been surpassed by a Catholic writer and rarely equalled
by a Protestant. His volumes on this period, while not very de
tailed, and in many ways deficient from lack of material since
opened to students, are still well worth perusal.

MORRIS, JOHN. THE TROUBLES OF OUR CATHOLIC FOREFATHERS RE
LATED BY THEMSELVES, EDITED BY JOHN MORRIS.

Three Series. London, 1872.

_THE CONDITION OF THE CATHOLICS UNDER JAMES I.

London, 1871, 1872, 1881.

Tierney was mainly concerned with the quarrel of the Jesuits and
Seculars; Lingard with the general history of England as viewed
by Catholic eyes; Morris became the legitimate successor to Chal
loner, and did the work on a larger scale, and with greater accuracy.
The titles of his books are misleading for they are all biographical
and contain chiefly martyristic tales of piety and suffering.

FOLEY, HENRY. RECORDS OF THE ENGLISH PROVINCE OF THE SOCIETY
OF JESUS.

7 volumes, bound in 11. London, and Roehampton. 1877-
1882.

405

APPENDIX

ENGLISH PROVINCE, S. J. ALPHABETICAL CATALOGUE OF MEM
BERS WHO ASSUMED ALIASES OR BY-NAMES, TOGETHER WITH
THE SAID ALIASES ; BY A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY.

Roehampton, 1876.

The secular priests had had two efficient workers in Tootle and
Tierney before a hand came to write the story from the Jesuit point
of view. Henry Foley was a man of middle age when he applied
for admission to the Jesuit Order, but being too old to begin the
novitiate, he was admitted a lay brother, and was set to work upon
the editing of the Jesuit records at Stonyhurst College and else
where. He was not a trained historian, and was not even a man of
literary capacity, but he brought to the work energy, patience, and
good-will. His large volumes are in no sense a history of the
Catholics in England, nor a history even of the Jesuit Order in
England. In them, a great deal of material has been loosely thrown
together, usually in biographical form. Much of it is concerned
with the martyrology of the Jesuits, but even here the wheat and
the chaff are closely mixed. Long and tedious legends of miracles
and saintly deeds are separated by a few pages of really important
narrative material. Foley 's comments are rarely of any value.

Naturally the lay brother was profoundly impressed by the his
tory of his Order and lacking that long regular training which
sharpens the intellect and teaches at the same time self-control, he
was neither able to conceal it, or to comprehend the necessity for
its control in a historian. His bias affected his choice of documents
and to some extent his use of them. Constitutional history he
cared little for, compared with the sufferings of the Fathers and
the progress of conversions. E. L. Taunton has spoken very dis
paragingly of Foley 's inaccuracy and bias, a criticism largely neu
tralized by his own sins in those same directions. While no one can
say that Foley 's work is a complete selection until he has enjoyed
all Foley 's privileges for seeing material, nor vouch for his entire
accuracy without spending months of painful labour verifying docu
ments, such' comparisons as the present writer was able to make in
an all-too-brief visit at Stonyhurst College show that Foley 's
omissions were in few cases of any value and in none of considerable
significance. The volumes undoubtedly abound in minor errors of
spelling, dating, and nomenclature, due less to Foley 's intention

406

BIBLIOGRAPHY

to conceal the truth than to his lack of a proper knowledge of
paleography and of experience in dating doubtful papers. He fur
thermore had not sufficient acquaintance with the political, consti
tutional, and social history of the period in general to understand
the more subtle clue which the papers often afforded. His Records
are in many ways deficient and need to be used with great care, the
material itself, however carefully reproduced, being often of a
highly prejudiced character, but it is hardly fair to charge him
with intentional misrepresentation on the basis of faults which Pu
ritans and Churchmen have conspicuously exemplified.

LAW, THOMAS GRAVES. A CALENDAR OF THE ENGLISH MARTYRS OF THE
16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES, WITH AN INTRODUCTION.

London, 1876.

A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN JESUITS
AND SECULARS IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, WITH A
REPRINT OF CHRISTOPHER BAGSHAW ?S ' TRUE RELATION OF THE
FACTION BEGUN AT WISBICH/ AND ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS.

London and Edinburgh, 1889.

DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATING CATHOLIC POLICY IN THE REIGN OF
JAMES VI.

Publications of the Scottish Historical Society, XV. Edin
burgh, 1893.

THE ARCHPRIEST CONTROVERSY. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO
THE DISSENTIONS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY, 1597-
1602. EDITED FROM THE PETYT MSS. OF THE INNER TEMPLE.

Camden Society, New Series, 56. Two volumes, Westmin
ster, 1896.

CATHOLIC TRACTATES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 1573-
1660.

Scottish Text Society, 45.
Edinburgh and London, 1901.

These volumes, written and edited by Mr. Law, contain the most
valuable material we have for the period, 1583-1602. He has re
printed Bagshaw's True Relation (in the Jesuits and Seculars],
and the seculars ' own accounts of the two appeals to Rome of 1598

407

APPENDIX

and 1602 from the Petyt MSS. (in the Archpriest Controversy) to
gether with a very considerable amount of other material. While
Mr. Law quite frankly sympathizes with the seculars and printed
almost exclusively their side of the case, he has tried and has in
some measure succeeded in being fair to the Jesuits. He brought
to his task what all his predecessors save Lingard lacked, careful
training in literary craftsmanship, considerable literary skill, and a
critical temper. He has written in the prefaces of these books brief
but admirable accounts of some of these matters. Mr. Law success
fully put the secular case on its feet, and cleared away many of the
mists which had shrouded it for centuries.

JESSOP, A. ONE GENERATION OF A NORFOLK HOUSE, A CONTRIBUTION
TO ELIZABETHAN HISTORY.

Norwich, 1878, 4°.

Second edition, London, 1879. 8°.

In this delightful book, an English Churchman of some eminence
had told the story of the Walpoles, but with an insight into social
and political conditions of the time, which render it really a "con
tribution to Elizabethan history. ' '

POLLEN, JOHN HUNGERFORD, has published in The Month during the
last fifteen years a series of articles which form in a fashion a his
tory of the Catholics during this period. Despite the gaps in a
narrative not intended to be consecutive, despite the restrictions im
posed by his general scheme which made long recitals of narrative
details out of place, his articles give in many ways the best account
yet produced by a Catholic. Father Pollen's great erudition is
equalled only by his moderation of statement and the charm of his
literary style.

It must, however, be admitted that at times he rescues himself from
dilemmas which would sorely tax his self restraint, by the simple
expedient of passing lightly over the difficulty ; and that, while one
can never detect an actual error in statement, or a prejudiced opin
ion, the general impression is at times unsatisfactory. He is a
master in the art of connotation. Still, there are few Protestant
writers of which the same cannot justly be said.

408

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TAUNTON, E. L. THE HISTORY OF THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND, 1580-1773.

London, 1901.

This book is really a life of Robert Parsons with animadversions
upon his conduct and upon that of the Jesuits in general. The
author makes considerable parade of the amount of his research,
but has not gone very far, and has added little if anything to what
we knew before. As a whole the book is uncritical and prejudiced.

STONE, J. M. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. AN ACCOUNT OF THE SUFFERINGS
OF THE ENGLISH FRANCISCANS DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND

SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

With appendix and preface by J. Morris. London, 1892.

MEYER, A. O. CLEMENS VIII UNO JACOB I VON ENGLAND.

Rome, 1904.

V. MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF THE LEGAL
CONTROVERSY

a. Manuscripts

If the printed books on the history of the Catholics are more
valuable than the manuscripts, the situation is completely reversed
in regard to the materials for legal history. Here the manuscript
material is not only more plentiful but more trustworthy than the
printed data.1 The Lansdowne MSS. contain the invaluable notes
by Sir Julius Cassar of the debates in the Privy Council ; the Hoik-
ham MSS. contain Coke's holograph notes of many meetings and
conferences. The Cotton and Harleian MSS., the Petyt MSS., and
most of the collections in the Oxford and Cambridge libraries, con
tain long reports of speeches and full copies of the controversial
documents freely exchanged by the two sides. The bulk of these
papers is great, their number is considerable, and they have been
so wrongly dated and assigned such varied authors that an attempt
has been made in the foot-notes to the text to give as complete a
bibliography as possible of the most important speeches and papers.

i Unless, of course, we frankly as- judges have declared to be law; and

sume the common law standpoint and if we accept the printed reports as

declare that there can be nothing infallible historical evidence of what

more important in the study of legal the judges' decision was.
history than what the common law

409

APPENDIX

The material is highly controversial, often extremely prejudiced,
and calls for discriminating handling; but it is reliable. We may
not believe the witness, but there is no doubt as to what his testi
mony was.

The records of the common law courts and the miscellaneous
papers of each court preserved at the Record Office, the uncalen-
dared papers packed in dusty bags in the archives of archiepis-
copal courts, and of the diocesan consistory courts, contain, no
doubt, invaluable material, if only we could get at it without so
much physical labour. But at present such work is practically
out of the question. Besides, valuable results are to be attained
not by the finding of a few forms of prohibition issued to John Doe
and to J. S. of Dale de modo decimandi, but by the tabulation of
hundreds of instances, showing how many prohibitions were issued
and on what subjects; how many consultations were granted;
whether the technical forms were always carefully observed, whether
technical flaws were always sufficient to defeat a prohibition;
whether many prohibitions were issued in the same case, or many
by the same court for the same type of case, where it must have
been clear that according to precedent a consultation must issue on
the return of the writ ; and the like questions. These are the points
on which we need information, and a man might work ten years,
and not be able to fill ten octavo pages with positive results. Of
course the printed reports furnish us with a statement which the
lawyers have always considered authoritative, (perhaps because it
was the best attainable) and from the reports, abridgements, and
year books the history of the common law must be written till the
original plea rolls shall be thoroughly read. But from the his
torian's point of view, the question is not, have men always believed
these books to be trustworthy, but have we in these books the final
and definitive authority. The reports may be entirely accurate, but
we shall not know that they contain the materials for the history
of the law a until they have been carefully compared with the plea
rolls and processes in the original records.

i They certainly do contain the sary for the study of the origin of
materials for the 'history of the law the law declared to be law by Coke
since the year 1640, for it is by fol- in 1608 and later. Coke continually
lowing the precedents of the printed cites manuscript evidence, and this
law books that the subsequent law may support him though it is suffi-
has been made. The mistake has ciently clear that on a good many
been rather in assuming that they points the few early books in print do
contained all the information neces- not.

410

BIBLIOGRAPHY

6. Printed Books

A good bibliography of English legal history, particularly during
this period, has yet to be written, for Bridgman's Short View of
Legal Bibliography (1807) and Clark's BiUiotheca Legum (1819)
are hopelessly out of date and also ill-arranged and inaccurate.
There are, however, various lists which in some respects fill the gap.
The prefaces to Coke's Reports contain valuable -lists of the books
extant at dates ranging from 1600 to 1610, and show the historian
exactly what evidence the lawyers of the time possessed, and above
all what Coke and his school considered cogent and authoritative.
A bibliography of law books of the time of Henry VIII (neither
complete, nor wholly accurate) is in Reeves, History of English
Law, Chapter XXX. H. G. Stevens and R. W. Haynes published
in 1873 A Chronological Catalogue of Law Reports, and a more ex
haustive list, extending from 1295 to 1865, useful despite the meagre
bibliographical data, will be found in the Harvard Law Review,
XV, 1-25. There are also some suggestive remarks by the late Pro
fessor Maitland on "The Materials for English Legal History," in
the Political Science Quarterly, IV, 496-518 ; 628-648.

The writing of the history of the Common Law in a scientific
manner has only begun, and for the sixteenth and seventeenth cen
turies the best contributions are in the most cases to be found in
brief monographs printed in the Law Reviews. Peculiarly sug
gestive articles, to be read in connection with Justice Holmes 's bril
liant volume, The Common Law, are the following : Sir F. Pollock,
"Sovereignty in English Law," Harvard Law Review, VIII, 243;
J. W. Wigmore, "Nemo tenetur seipsum prodere," lUd, V, 71-88;
L. 0. Pike, "Common Law and Conscience," Law Quarterly Re
view, I, 443; 0. W. Holmes, "Early English Equity," Hid., I, 162.
Certainly any one who would thoroughly understand the compli
cated legal situation of this time, must begin with the history of
terms and actions in the sixteenth century as re-written by the men
just named, by Professor Ames, Professor Gray, and others. Their
articles are in fact the only secondary material that the serious
student will find worth his labour.

Most of the histories of the law are so uncritical in attitude, so
rambling in treatment, so prejudiced in favour of the Common Law
in season and out of season, that the historian loses faith in them

411

APPENDIX

and places them in the same category with Neal, Heylin, and Chal-
loner. Reeves 's History of English Law, published just before the
French Revolution, was in its day a great book, and Finlason's edi
tion (London, 1869) is still useful. Even this latest edition ap
peared, however, before the real study of legal history had com
menced, and it is now inaccurate and antiquated. The only sub
sequent attempt to put together (outside of a few manuals of no
value) the results of research for the whole period of English legal
history is W. S. Holdsworth's History of English Law, (three vol
umes, London, 1903, 1909). The vast field he is trying to cover
and the enormous amount of material extant on it have in large
measure frustrated his vigorous efforts to obtain clear and definite
results ; the fact that so much good work had been done on the ori
gins of the law and so little on its subsequent history, in a measure
forced him to assign an undue amount of space to the years pre
vious to 1307. Naturally too, that part of the story is most complete.
Nor could he hope to speak with authority on all points of so vast
a subject: his labour was necessarily that of compiling and resta
ting the work of Maitland and his colleagues. The book is able, and
as good as could be expected, and is certainly the best we have. No
history concerned exclusively with the sixteenth century has as
yet been written, no good life of Coke has been published, and we are
in fact as nearly in the Dark Ages in the legal history of this sub
ject as we well could be.

On the ecclesiastical side there is nothing worthy of mention save
the most technical law tomes and treatises. Gibson's Codex, Burn's
Ecclesiastical Law, and Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law furnish ex
cellent legal statements of many points, but say little about the
history of the subject. By far the best history of the ecclesiastical
courts is the account by Bishop Stubbs in the Report of the Com
mission on Ecclesistical Courts in 1883, (Par!. Doc. 1883, xxiv.)
This, however, is so condensed that it is of little service to one who
has not already progressed some distance toward a comprehension
of the subject. Material on the Court of Delegates will be found in
Rothery's Return (1837) ; a brief account of the Star Chamber by
Miss Scobell, and an older and poorer account of the High Com
mission by J. S. Burn, give vague and misleading ideas of the ac
tivities of those two tribunals. The Selden Society's publications
on the Court of Requests and on the Admiralty give a good idea of

412

BIBLIOGRAPHY

the methods of practicing Civil Law in those courts, but say little
of their relation to the ecclesiastical courts. A few contemporary
tracts by Bancroft, Cosin, Fulbecke, and Ridley, are very valuable ;
the rest have little or no information regarding the history of the
controversy. Spedding's Life and Letters of Francis Bacon con
tains much important data. Of the Law Reports, Coke's and
Croke 's are very much the best ; March, Moore, Bendloe, and Dyer
cite some cases of prohibitions, but the rest of that very long series
of reporters either ignore the whole subject or give little space to
it. In fact, the amount of material in print on the ecclesiastical
side of the case is not as plentiful as could be wished. On the
whole, while there are hundreds of books concerned in one way and
another with the history of the common law, and plenty on the
technicalities of ecclesiastical practice and procedure, there are com
paratively few which have much material directly relating to the
clash of the two jurisdictions. Of the former categories, the books
to be consulted are for the most part so commonplace, that it would
be a work of supererogation even to list their titles ; upon the latter,
their titles will be found either in this bibliography or in the foot
notes to the text.

On one point, however, Tithes, the obscurity of the subject makes
a brief bibliography necessary.

1606. G. CARLETON. TITHES EXAMINED AND PROVED TO BE DUE TO THE
CLERGIE BY A DIVINE RIGHT.

(Second edition, 1611.)

1619. J. SELDEN. A HISTORY OF TITHES.

(Also 1638.)

1619. R. TILDESLEY. ANIMADVERSIONS UPON MR. SELDEN *S HISTORY
OF TITHES.

1621. R. MOUNTAGUE. DISTRIBAE UPON THE FIRST PART OF THE LATE
HISTORY OF TITHES.

1623. W. SCLATER. ARGUMENTS ABOUT TITHES.

1625. C. BURGES. NEW DISCOVERY OF PERSONAL TITHES.

1630. J. DODDERIDGE. THE COMPLEAT PARSON, OR A DESCRIPTION OF
ADVOWSONS OR CHURCH LIVINGS.

(Also, 1641; 1663.)

413

APPENDIX

1646. SIR H. SPELMAN. TITHES TOO HOT TO BE TOUCHED. CERTAIN
TREATISES WHEREIN IS SHEWEN THAT TITHES ARE DUE BY
THE LAW OF NATURE, SCRIPTURE, NATIONS, THEREFORE
NEITHER JEWISH, POPISH, NOR INCONVENIENT.

1654. W. SHEPPARD. PARSONS GUIDE OR LAW OF TITHES.

(Also, 1670, 1671.)

1676. SIR S. DEGGE. THE PARSON 's COUNSELLOR. WITH THE LAW OF
TITHES OR TITHING.

(Many editions.)

1681. DR. CAUBER (DEAN OF DURHAM). VINDICATION OF THE DIVINE
RIGHT OF TITHES.

1783. J. RAYNER. TITHE CASES. (1571-1782.)

(3 volumes.)

1786. J. BACON. LIBER REGIS VEL THESAURUS RERUM ECCLESIASTI-
CARUM. WITH APPENDIX OF DIRECTIONS AND PRECEDENTS RE
LATING TO PRESENTATIONS.

EAGLE AND YOUNGE. TITHE CASES. (1204-1825).
1830. W. EAGLE. A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF TITHES.

LORD SELBORNE. ANCIENT FACTS AND FICTIONS CONCERNING
CHURCHES AND TITHES.

G. E. JONES. A HISTORY OF THE LAW OF TITHES IN ENGLAND.

414

INDEX

Abbot, George, Archbishop of Can
terbury, i. 382; ii. 262, 263, 265.

Administration of the Church, char
acter of, after the Eeformation,
i. 40, 91-94; difficulties of, i. 94-
98; ii. 22-25; vagueness of in
formation concerning, ii. 29-34.

Administrative problems, general con
dition of, in the sixteenth century,
i. 1-21, 91-100, 234, 392, 400, 401;
altered in 1603, i. 287-289; altered
in 1605, ii. 20-49; in 1606, ii. 134-
136; in 1610, ii. 263-270.

Advertisements of 1564, i. 191, 194,
360, 388.

Allegiance, oath of: origin of, i. 166,
168, 176, 183-185; precedent for,
ii. 102-110, 310-324; significance
of, ii. 110-112; generally accepted,
ii. 175-191; results of acceptance
of, ii. 191 ; movement to enforce,
in 1610, ii. 251-254.

Anglicanism, its system of theology,
i. 80-84.

Appeal, by secular priests, to Pope,
i. 153, 156, 166-186; ii. 176, 179,
193, 194, 199, 202-204.

Archbishop, functions of, i. 93; ii.
21, 32.

Archdeacon, functions of, i. 93, 98,
349; ii. 21, 27, 30, 32; salary of,
ii. 223.

Arehpriest, office of, created, i. 151,
152, 182, 188, 189; legal position
of, ii. 195-199.

Arminianism, ii. 266-269.

Articles of 1575, i. 191, 192, 194.

Articles of 1585, i. 193, 360, 388.

Articles, Thirty-nine: legal status
of, i. 193, 194, 196, 200, 202; at
tempts to reform, i. 321, 323, 345;
reaffirmed in 1604, i. 345.

Articles, Whitgift's Three, i. 192,

194.

Articuli Cleri, 1605, ii. 74-88.
Aylmer, John, Bishop of London, i.

37, 62-64, 114, 115, 203, 226.

Bacon, Sir Francis, ii. 120, 124, 186,
221, 227, 231, 233-235, 238, 240.

Bagshaw, Christopher, secular priest,
i. 150, 156, 161, 167, 172, 183.

Bancroft, Eichard, character of, i.
30, 32, 36-38, 57, 118-119; early
life of, i. 22-38; discovers Classis
movement, i. 42, 46; writes tracts,
i. 46-47 ; answers Marprelate Tracts,
i. 49, 50 ; preaches Sermon at Paul 's
Cross, i. 50-54; quarrel with En
glish Puritans over, i. 55; with
Scotch ministers over, i. 56-58 ;
heads a crusade to the jails, i. 59;
breaks up Classes, i. 60-64; writes
tracts, i. 66-67; conception of, of
Church and State, i. 72-74; policy
of, toward the Puritans, i. 77-78 ;
significance of work of, in the
High Commission, i. 100, 101, 107-
108; appointed Bishop of London,
i. 113-114; work of, as Bishop of
London, i. 114-122, 127-131; em
bassy of, to Denmark, i. 123-127;
resists the rebellion of Essex, i.
122-123, 128-129; attitude of, to
Catholic problem, i. 132, 141-142,
160-175; examines Weston's
"witchcraft", i. 178; measures of,
toward an understanding with the
seculars, 1602, i. 182-186; at Eliza
beth's death-bed, i. 187-188; repre
sents the modern idea of Puritan
ism, i. 247; real work of, i. 288;
relations of, to James I, 1603, i.
298, 301, 302, 307; learns of the

417

INDEX

Bye Plot, i. 303-305; fears for his
own safety, 1603, i. 305; at the
Hampton Court Conference, i. 310-
333, 359; work of, on the Canons
of 1604, i. 335, 336, 385, 401-402;
conflict of, with the Puritans in
the House of Commons, 1604-1605,
i. 344, 346, 348, 350, 356; accused
of high treason by the Puritans, i.
346; plans of, for reform, 1604-
1605, i. 352-353, 357-358; enforces
conformity, i. 408-411, 414, 417; ii.
3-6, 10; reforms the administrative
constitution, ii. 20-49; tries to
increase ecclesiastical incomes, ii.
53-57; opposes the common law
courts and prohibitions, ii. 74-88;
negotiates with the Catholics, 1603-
1604, ii. 89-94; policy of, toward
Catholics, 1604, ii. 94-95; shapes
the oath of allegiance, ii. 106-110;
defends the Church in Parliament,
1606-1607, ii. 113-127, 131-133;
part of, in the Canons of 1606, ii.
127-129; statistics of attendance
of in Parliament, 1597-1610, ii. 129-
131; tries Fuller, ii. 142; establishes
the Scotch bishops, ii. 154-174; al
tercation of, with Melvill, ii. 164-
166; urges lenience in enforcing
the oath of allegiance, ii. 175-189;
investigates the legend of the bar
ley-corn, ii. 180; aids the organ
isation of the secular priests and
their plea for Catholic bishops, ii.
196, 201-202; part of, in the legal
controversy, 1608-1609, ii. 213, 218-
223, 225-226, 230, 241; schemes of,
to augment ecclesiastical incomes,
1610, ii. 247, 251, 255-258; blames
pluralists, ii. 260 ; consecrates the
Scotch bishops, ii. 261-262; death
of, ii. 262.

Barneby, Francis, secular priest, i.
172, 174, 303.

Bedell, William, Puritan and Eng
lish Bishop, i. 254, 404; ii. 14-16.

Bible, new translation of, i. 324, 357,
358.

Birkhead, George, Archpriest, ii.
192-194, 198-201, 203-204, 253.

Bishop, William, secular priest, i. 151,
172-173; ii. 177, 198, 202.

Bishop, functions of, in the Estab
lished Church, i. 91, 91-100, 104,
113-130, 192, 286, 349; ii. 21, 30,
32; incomes of, i. 114-116, 222-225,
290, 313-314, 337-339, 349; size
of episcopal estates of, i. 226 note;
expedients of, to relieve poverty, i.
226-227; relation of, to the High
Commission, i. 109-110; attacked by
the Puritans, i. 39, 292-302, 348-
351.

Bishops, Catholic, movement for, i.
147-148, 174-177; ii. 194-195, 199-
205.

Bishops in Scotland, ii. 154-174, 261-
262.

Blackwell, George, Archpriest, i. 152-
156, 165, 169, 170, 182, 304; ii. 89,
90, 93, 98-100, 108, 176, 177, 181-
183, 185, 186, 192, 198, 202.

Bluet, Thomas, secular priest, i. 150,
156, 160, 164-168, 172, 178-180,
183, 185; ii. 93.

Book of Common Prayer, i. 44, 335,
336, 345, 357.

Book of Discipline, growth of the
idea of, i. 43-44; legal standing of,
i. 47 ; revised, i. 48 ; attacked by
Bancroft, i. 50-54, 66-67; revised
in 1603, i. 291-298, 313-315; in
directly advocated in 1604, i. 348-
350; and in 1606, ii. 117, 126, 127;
why impossible of adoption in Eng
land, i. 255-256, 405.

Browne, Eobert, i. 32, 42, 59, 292, 293.

Burgess, John, Puritan minister, i
254, 404, 416; ii. 15, 16.

Burghley, Lord. See Cecil, William.

Bye Plot, i. 302-306; ii. 90-91.

Cambridge University, life in, during

418

INDEX

Elizabeth 's reign, i. 25, 26, 43, 121,
122.

Canons of 1571, i. 191, 194, 388.

Canons of 1597, i. 192, 193, 360, 388.

Canons of 1604, passage of, i. 343,
345-346, 348, 358; formulated, i.
355, 385, 386; importance of, i.
358; significance of, i. 385-402; ii.
265; genesis of, i. 359-384; ii. 273-
288, 293-310; legality of, attacked
by Puritans, i. 406-407, 410; ii.
115-117, 124, 247, 258.

Cartwright, Thomas, Puritan minis
ter, i. 27, 28, 43, 48, 55, 62-64, 69,
88, 247, 249, 297, 308.

Catholic clergy, character of, i. 8, 148-
151; geographical distribution of,
i. 23; number of, i. 133, 134, 156,
157; real intentions of, i. 141-142;
necessity of organisation of,
seen, i. 143; ii. 195-196; attitude
of, to the tttate, i. 186; ii. 89-90,
266-267 ; attitude of, to the oath of
allegiance, ii. 176-177, 181-186, 193,
253, 254; attitude of, on Catholic
bishops, i. 147-148, 176-177; ii.
194-195, 199-205.

Catholic laity, number of, i. 131, 133-
136, 146, 157-159; ii. 251, 252; dis
tribution of, i. 135 map, 141; de
termined resistance of, to laws, i.
136-141; effect of the defeat of the
Armada upon, i. 143; attitude of,
to the State, i. 169-170, 186, 287;
ii. 91-93, 105-106, 266-267; attitude
of, toward the Gunpowder Plot, ii.
95-96, 101, 175; attitude of, toward
the oath of allegiance, ii. 175, 177,
179, 183, 184, 187-191; attitude of,
toward the Pope, ii. 194; attitude
of, toward the English Church, ii,
191, 268-269.

Cecil, Eobert, Viscount Cranbourn,
Earl of Salisbury, i. 113, 114, 122-
128, 167, 168, 180, 181, 324, 411,
412; ii. 11, 87, 90, 91, 142, 147,

148, 176, 186, 188, 202, 215, 216,
'221, 239, 257.

Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, i. 33,
42, 58, 113, 114.

Censorship of the press, i. 119-128,
171.

Ceremonies objected to by Puritans,
i. 44.

Chaderton, Laurence, Puritan minis
ter, i. 26, 42, 48, 249, 254, 293, 329,
319 note; ii. 14-16.

Chapman, Edmund, Puritan minister,
i. 27, 46, 249, 257.

Church of England, administrative
condition of, in the sixteenth cen
tury, 1-21; connection of, with the
State, i. 40; Bancroft's conception
of, i. 54, 72-74; relation of, to the
State, i. 68-90; significance for, of
Bancroft's relation with the Catho
lics, i. 186-187; significance for, of
Elizabeth's death, i. 187; condition
of, in 1603, i. 192-243; legal rela
tion of the Puritans to, i. 196-197;
the economic causes of administra
tive difficulties, i. 234; attitude of
the people toward, i. 275-281; ii.
266-267; new aspect of problems
of, in 1603, i. 286; present consti
tution of, created in 1604, i. 334;
significance for, of the acceptance
of the oath of allegiance, ii. 191;
authority of, menaced by prohibi
tions, ii. 206-210; condition of, in
1610, ii. 263-270.

Churchwardens, duties of, i. 98 ; ii.
21, 27, 30, 33, 34; character of, i.
211-213; ignorance and negligence
of, i. 214-215; attitude of, toward
the vicar's nonconformity, i. 262-
269.

Churches, parish, bad condition of, in
1603, i. 215-218; condition of, in
1610, ii. 264-265.

Classis, i. 43, 44, 293, 314.

Clergy of Established Church, char
acter of, i. 8; condition of, in 1603,

419

INDEX

i. 205-243; conformity of, i. 206-
207; learning of, i. 207-209;
pluralists and nonresidents, i. 209-
211; causes of the bad condition
of, i. 219-243; condition of in 1610,
ii. 264.

Coke, Sir Edward, Chief Justice, i.
24, 27, 419 note; ii. 65-66, 78, 88,
135, 149, 210, 213 note, 214-216,
221-229, 231-246.

Colleton, John, secular priest, i. 144,
151, 156; ii. 93, 177, 194, 198, 202.

Commons, House of: reasons for its
defence of the Puritans, i. 271, 272,
407; ii. 220; session of 1604, i.
341, 344-352, 356; session of 1605-
6, ii. 110-127; session of 1606-7, ii.
131-133; session of 1610, ii. 246-
251, 254-255, 258-259.

Commision for Causes Ecclesiastical.
See High Commission.

Conceptions of Church and State, i.
68-90.

Conformity, history and power of, in
1603, i. 9-13; necessity of, in the
sixteenth century, i. 19-20; how to
be attained, i. 199, 202; influence
of, on the idea of subscription, i.
363-365, 392.

Congregationalism, i. 32, 42, 59, 292,
293.

Congregations of Puritans, i. 39, 40,
46, 262-268.

Constitution of the Church of Eng
land, condition of, in 1603, i. 191-
204, 359; precedent for, in 1603, i.
259-284; ii. 273-310, 325-330; form
ulated anew in the Canons of 1604,
i. 385-402; legal status of, i.
370-371.

Consultation, ii. 58, 81, 143-145, 209.

y Convocation, power of, i. 193, 363-
364; ii. 115-117; session of 1604,
i. 343-346, 348, 351, 358 ; session of
1606, ii. 127-129.
Courts, common law: basis of quar

rel of, with the ecclesiastical courts,
ii. 56-73; disagreement of, on pro
hibitions, ii. 74-68 ; debates in
which the quarrel was iought out,
ii. 206-245; real significance of, ii.
228-229, 245.

Courts, ecclesiastical: reform of, i.
399-401 ; effect of reformation on,
ii. 59, 75, 76, 78; basis of quar
rel of, with the common law courts,
ii. 56-73; disagreement of, on pro
hibitions, ii. 74-88; authority of,
endangered by prohibitions, ii. 206-
210; debates over extent of author
ity of, ii. 210-245; results of the
quarrel, ii. 245.

Cowell, John, civilian, i. 335; ii. 211,
248-249.

Cranbourn, See Cecil, Eobert.

Custom, See Modus decimandi.

Dangerous Positions, tract by Ban
croft, i. 66-67.

Dean, rural, functions of, ii. 21, 30, 32.

Denmark, Bancroft's embassage to,
i. 123-127.

Deprivation of Puritan ministers, i,
352, 403-423; ii. 3-19; declared il
legal by the House of Commons, ii.
113, 118, 119, 249; why not re
scinded by the Church, ii. 125-127,
258.

Dilapidations and waste, i. 114, 115,
226, 227; ii. 44-45.

Downame, George, Puritan minister,
i. 254, 257, 258; ii. 14, 16-18, 212.

Edward VI, ecclesiastical policy of,

i. 4, 5.
Egerton, Stephen, Puritan minister, i.

116, 117, 254, 262, 293, 296, 313,

329, 345.
Ellesmere, Thomas Egerton, Baron,

Lord Chancellor, ii. 165, 166, 221,

223-225, 233, 240.
Elizabeth, ecclesiastical policy of, i.

420

INDEX

5, 6, 21, 96-98, 103, 113, 132, 188,
201, 203; refuses toleration to
Catholics, i. 166; death of, i. 187-
188; legacy of, to Church and
State, i. 188, 240.

Episcopacy, Puritan plans for re
form of, i. 43, 44; dispute over by
Bancroft and Cartwright, i. 55;
opinion of early reformers regard
ing, i. 68-69.

Erbury, Puritan minister, i. 254, 306,
329, 346, 347.

Excommunication, effect of the Re-
formation on force of, as a penalty,
i. 94, 394, 395; use of, i. 104;
the only ecclesiastical penalty, i.
339-340; Puritan complaints of,
i. 290-319, 349; substitute proposed
for, i. 330, 339, 340, 350, 352; ii.
119, 124, 259; attacked in Parlia
ment, 1606-7, ii. 119-120; attitude
of Scotch and English Puritans
upon, compared, ii. 155-157; at
tacked by common law courts, ii.
207; attacked by the House of
Commons, 1610, ii. 249.

Pees, i. 224 note, 229, 233, 290, 400;

ii. 45-46.
Feilde, John, Puritan minister, i. 48,

254, 313, 319 note, ii. 14.
Fleming, Gir Thomas, Chief Justice,

ii. 135, 223, 225.
Puller, Nicholas, Puritan lawyer, i.

41C; ii. 118, 134-153, 247.

Galloway, James, Scotch minister, i.

294, 301, 306, 307, 312, 313, 316,

339.
Gardiner, Dr. S. R., criticisms of his

History of England, i. 290, 332,

394, 395; ii. 4, 5, 83, 84 note, 91

note, 95, 96, 141-145, 151, 180.
Garnet, Henry, Jesuit, i. 144, 150,

169; ii. 93, 96-97, 101, 108, 180,

181.
Grindal, Edmund, Archbishop of Can

terbury, i. 30, 37, 43, 100, 198, 360;
ii. 26.

Gunpowder Plot, origin of, ii. 95-98;
connection of Jesuits with, ii. 96-
97, 101; results of, ii. 95, 98-101,
110, 112, 178, 268.

Hampton Court Conference, first pro
posed, i. 290, 312; James's inten
tions concerning, i. 309, 311, 312,
336; cause of, i. 310, 311; the de
bate itself, i. 318-330; results of,
i. 311, 331-334, 340; accounts of,
ii. 331-354.

Hatton, Sir Christopher, patron of
Bancroft, i. 31, 35.

Henry IV of France, helps Appel
lants on their appeal to Rome,
i. 172, 175, 176, 179; effect
of murder of, on English senti
ment, ii. 251.

Henry VIII of England, ecclesiasti
cal policy of, i. 4, 93; use of the
High Commission by, i. 101.

High Commission, early history of,
i. 91-112; Bancroft a member of,
i. 35; tries Snape, i. 61; tries
Cartwright, i. 62-64; handles cen
sorship of the press, i. 119, 136;
routine work of, i. 173, 305; issues
Advertisements of 1564, i. 194;
attacked at the Hampton Court
Conference, i. 328, 330; alters the
Book of Common Prayer, i. 335;
attacked by the Puritans to prevent
the enforcing of subscription, i.
406-408, 411, 420; plans to re
form in 1604, i. 328, 330, 339-341;
ii. 206-207; position of, in the
Church, ii. 22, 30, 33, 136; attacked
in Parliament, 1606-1607, ii. 118-
120, 132, 133; attacked by Fuller,
ii. 134-153; erected in Scotland, ii.
171; attacked by the common law
courts, ii. 206-207, 216-218, 225,
230, 231, 236-237, 240, 242-243;
plans to reform in 1610, ii. 259,

421

INDEX

263, 265 ; why abolished in 1660, ii.

270.

Hildersham, Arthur, Puritan minis
ter, i. 64 note, 254, 293, 296, 313,

329; ii. 11.
Hobart, Henry, Attorney General, ii.

147, 149, 150, 151, 231, 236-239.
Holtby, Eichard, Jesuit, ii. 176, 177,

183, 184, 200, 202, 204.
Hooker, Eichard, conceptions of, of

Church and State, i. 74-78.

Impropriations, amount of, i. 232-
233, 241; attack upon, i. 290, 301,
302, 337-339; ii. 54, 257.

of allegiance, ii. 109-111 and notes,
178; petitioned by the House of
Commons against the Church, ii.
124, 132; opinion of, on Canons
of 1606, 11. 128; alarmed at the at
tack on the High Commission, ii.
142-143, 146, 148, 149; re-estab
lishes bishops in Scotland, ii. 154-
174; policy of, for enforcing the
oath of allegiance, ii. 178, 179, 186,
189; holds debates on the legal
controversies, 1608-1609, ii. 212-
216, 225-229, 231-241; upholds
Bancroft's policy, 1610, ii. 255-
256, 258-259.

Incomes, ecclesiastical, condition of, \ Jesuits, organise the English Mission,

i. 142; first quarrel of, with the
seculars, i. 144, 145; favour the
Spanish Succession, i. 145-146;
ideal of, i. 145-147; secure the ap
pointment of the Archpriest, i.
151; charged with extravagance, i.
154-155; attitude of, toward tol
eration in England, i. 162-163; real
services of, to the English Catho
lics, i. 176-177; position of in
1602, i. 182-183; united to the
seculars by the accession of
James, ii. 89-90; complicity ot, in
the Gunpowder Plot, ii. 96-97, 101;
divided from the seculars, ii. 98-
101; oppose the oath of allegiance,
ii. 176, 177, 182, 184; oppose the
movement for Catholic bishops, ii.
197, 199, 200-204.

i. 53, 114-116, 219-223; cause of
bad condition of, i. 223-237; this,
the vital question of reconstruction,
i. 229, 234, 239, 288; opposition to
the increase of, i. 234, 291-292;
size of Puritan, i. 274-275; denial
of inadequacy of, i. 291-292, 353;
necessity for increasing, ii. 53-54;
Puritan idea of increasing, i. 349;
measures taken by the Church to
increase, i. 313-314, 337-339; ii.
53-57, 65-69, 206-207, 247-248, 255-
258; eventual remedy for, ii. 269.
Injunctions of 1559, i. 191, 192, 194,
360, 388.

Jacobs, Henry, Puritan minister, i.

254, 296, 306, 329; ii. 14.
James I of England (VI of Scot

land), in Scotland, i. 126, 127, 168, Jewel, Melancthon, Puritan minister,

186; effect of accession of, on the
Church of England, i. 285-288;
personality of, i. 288-289, 291;
position of, during 1603, i. 291,
298, 301, 302; at Hampton Court
Conference, i. 310-333; attitude
of, toward Puritans, 1605, i. 408,
413, 414, 418-419, 422; attitude
of, to Catholics, 1603-1605, ii. 91-
92, 107; negotiations with Pope, ii.
91-92 notes, 107; defends the oath

i. 62, 254, 410-411.

Judges, common law: attitude of,
toward the ecclesiastical courts be
fore 1605, ii. 68-73; attitude of, in
1605, ii. 74-88; uphold the ecclesi
astical jurisdiction, ii. 135 ; aid
Fuller, ii. 142, 143, 145, 148, 149,
153 ; maintain their stand upon
prohibitions, ii. 149, 206-245; Ban
croft's opinion of, ii. 219, 220.

Judges, ecclesiastical : attitude of,

422

INDEX

toward the common law judges in
1605, ii. 74-88; conflict of, with
the common law judges over pro
hibitions, ii. 206-245; results of
the conflict, ii. 245; petitions of,
ii. 218, 221.

Justices of the Peace, influence of,
i. 132, 136-141; duties of, i. 120,
139.

Knewstubbs, John, Puritan minister,
i. 27, 48, 254, 268, 293, 313, 325,
329, 404, 408; ii. 9, 10, 14.

Knightly, Richard, patron of Puri
tans, i. 60, 270, 342, 417, 418.

Knollys, Sir Francis, Puritan patron,
i. 42, 48, 55.

London, Bishop of, special functions
of, i. 106, 113-130.

Laud, William, Archbishop of Can
terbury, i. 108; ii. 245; contrasted
with Bancroft, i. 379, 380, 382; ii.
159, 173-174.

Law, civil, in England, position of
threatened, ii. 218-221.

Law, common, theory of, i. 363, 364;
Puritans use to block ecclesiastical
procedure, i. 406, 407, 410; ii. 115,
134-136; what it was thought to
be, ii. 80, 214, 215, 240.

Law, ecclesiastical, i. 47, 237; con
dition of, in 1603, i. 191-198; ii.
59, 207.

Law, penal, i. 45; ii. 110-112, 249,
254, 255; not rigorously enforced
by James I, ii. 175-191, 258 ; move
ment to enforce, in 1610, ii. 251-
254.

Marprelate Tracts. See Tracts.
Mary Stuart, effect of death of, on

the Catholic cause in England, i.

142-143.
Melvill, Andrew, Scotch minister, ii.

157, 159, 162, 163-166, 173.
Melvill, James, Scotch minister, ii.

155, 162, 163-169, 173.

423

Millenary Petition, i. 290-294, 299-
301.

Modus Decimandi, origin and ex
tent of, i. 230-231; factors altering
status of, i. 231-235; ii. 54-56; dis
pute as to legal status and defini
tion of, ii. 62-64, 69-71, 214-215,
224, 226-228, 232, 233, 240, 244-
245; condition of, in 1610, ii. 264.

Mush, John, secular priest, i. 144, 151,
156, 162, 172; ii. 175, 176, 177,
187, 194, 198, 202, 203, 253.

Nonconformity, true causes of, i. 117
211-215, 269-278.

Nonresidence, i. 192, 211, 220, 290,
299, 300, 337, 351, 354, 399, 400;'
ii. 118, 206, 247, 263, 264.

Oath ex officio, attacked, i. 61-64, 328,
339, 341, 349, 364; ii. 73, 76, 124^
138, 139, 206, 207, 259.

Ordinances, formed the true constitu
tion of the Church in 1603, i. 359-
383; legal status of, i. 370-371;
bibliography of, i. 383-384.

Organisation, necessity of, in re
formed churches, i. 16; the great
problem of the sixteenth century,
i. 21, 143, 144.

Papacy, the great sanction of con
formity, i. 10; position of, in
England before the Reformation, i.
93, 94; negotiates with James, ii.
91-92, 107; attitude of, toward tol
eration, i. 176; appealed to, by the
seculars, i. 153-156, 175-176, 179,
180; attitude of, toward the oath
of allegiance, ii. 179, 181, 186, 193;
attitude of, on the establishing GJ.
Catholic bishops, ii. 197.

Parliament. See House of Commons.

Parsons, Robert, Jesuit, life of, i.
24, 26, 144, 146, 149-150; secures
the appointment of the Archpriest,
i. 152; defeats first appeal of the
seculars, i. 153 ; belief that he tried

INDEX

to have Elizabeth assassinated, i. Prohibitions, defined, ii. 57, 66, 67,

165 ; defeats the second appeal of
the seculars, i. 169, 170, 172, 176,
177, 182, 184, 186; attitude ot to
ward Catholic bishops, i. 177-180;
ii. 192, 199, 200, 202-204; attitude
of, on the oath of allegiance, ii.
175, 176; death of, ii. 205.
Penry, John, Puritan minister, i. 40,

49, 50, 55, 60, 65.
People, attitude of, toward the
Church, i. 275-281, 287; ii. 18, 19;
hostility of, toward the Puri
tans, i. 262-269; ii. 8, 9; intellec
tual ability of, i. 275, 278.
Petitions, trom Puritans, i. 39, 45,
290-298, 306-308, 343, 345, 346,
407, 412 note, 413, 417-419; from
Catholics, i. 166; ii. 91; from civil
ians, ii. 218; from the House of
Commons, i. 352; ii. 118, 250, 258.
Pluralities, i. 29, 34, 114, 192, 209-
211, 220, 222, 233 note, 239, 290,
299, 300, 337, 349, 351, 353, 354,
399, 400; ii. 53-54, 118, 206, 247,
255, 256, 258-260, 263, 264.
Presbyterianism in England, attempt
to introduce in 1584, i. 43, 44, 48,
55; this, the vital issue between
the Church and the Puritans, i.
248, 281, 317, 331; real strength
of, in the ministers only, i. 268 ;
attempt to introduce in 1603-1605,
i. 291-302, 313-315, 325, 327, 341,
347, 348, 352, 354, 420; real justi
fication for, ii. 21; indirectly sup
ported by the House of Commons,
1605-1610, ii. 117, 126-127, 247,
248; to be attained by rendering
the bishops powerless, ii. 136.
Presbyterianism in Scotland, i. 54-

58; ii. 154-174, 261-262.
Presentations, significance of, in in
troducing nonconformity, i. 94-95,
97, 110-112, 209, 233, 269-271.
Privy Council, connection of, with
the High Commission, i. 100-107.

218; history of, ii. 58-59, 69-71;
disputes over technicalities of, in
1598, ii. 77-78; in 1605, ii. 74-88,
223-228, 231-232; number of, ii.
82, 206, 221, 236; effect of, upon
ecclesiastical administration, ii.
206-210; debates over, in 1608-
1609, ii. 211-245; decision upon, ii.
245, 246, 259.

Prophesies, significance of, i. 43.

Protestantism, i. 5.

Puritanism, meaning of, i. 15, 16,
244-249 ; as a system of theology, i.
78-80, 82-83; movement for, large
ly of ministers, i. 268; reasons for
growth of, i. 269-278; reasons for
rejection of, in England, i. 253-256.

Puritan clergy, character and learn
ing of, i. 8, 26-27, 251-259; attempt
of, to introduce Presbyterianism,
1584-1590, i. 39-65; ideas of, on
reform, i. 44, 50, 53, 247, 248, 290-
298, 313-315, 321-332, 338-341;
selfishness of, i. 53; relation of, to
the laity, i. 53, 262-268, 415;
schism among, i. 59, 61, 62, 248;
relation of, to the Church, i. 196-
197, 248; number of, i. 249-251;
geographical distribution of, i. 23,
254, 255; attitude of congregations
toward, i. 262-268 ; reasons for power
of, i. 269-278 ; condition of in 1603,
i. 292-293; demands of, rejected
by the Canons of 1604, i. 397-399;
why movement of, failed, i. 353-
356, 409-410, 419, 423; forms of
submission offered to, i. 376-377 ;
deprivation of, i. 403-423; motives
of, to resist deprivation, i. 403-
407; number of deprived, ii. 3-10;
character of those deprived, ii. 13,
14; result of the deprivations, ii.
12-19; attempt to reinstate the de
prived with the aid of Parliament,
ii. 113-127; attempt to reinstate by
attacking the High Commission, ii.

424

INDEX

134-153; intolerance of, ii. 110, 111, Reformation on the Continent, an ap-

191; list of Puritan complaints, ii. peal to history, i. 14; organisation

355-357. of, explained, i. 17-18.

Puritan laity, number of, i. 40, 259- Renaissance, influence of, on the

262, 268; attitude of, to the English reformation, i. 85-88.

Church, i. 53; ii. 113; attitude of, Ridley, Sir Thomas, i. 335; ii. 211.
to Puritan clergy, i. 262-268, 415;

stood in the way of reform, i. 353; St. Paul's Cathedral, condition of, i.
intolerance of, ii. 110-111; Puritan
manifestoes, ii. 358-365.

Pursuivant, functions of, i. 104.
Eaignolds, John, Puritan minister:

114, 117-118.

Salisbury. See Cecil, Robert.
Scholarship, classical, influence of,

on theological controversy, i. 85-

88.

copacy, ministers, etc., ii. 154-174,
261-262.

favours the Discipline, i. 48, 55, Scotland, Kirk of: bishops in, epis-

249, 254, 293; at the Hampton

Court Conference, i. 318-327;

threatened with deprivation, ii. 14- ^.Seculars, or secular priests, created

as missioners, i. 142; first quarrel
of, with Jesuits at Wisbeach, i,
144; first organisation of, i. 144;
ideal of, i. 147-148; character of,
i. 149, 177-178; resist the Arch-
priest, i. 153; first appeal of, to
Rome, i. 153; second appeal of, i.
156, 166-186; attitude of, toward
oath of allegiance, i. 183-185; re
sults of years 1595-1603 upon, i.
186; united to Jesuits by accession
of James I, ii. 89-90; offer oaths
of allegiance, ii. 102-110; support
the oath of allegiance, ii. 176-177,
181-183, 185-186, 193; defy the
Pope, ii. 193-194; demand bishops,
ii. 194-195, 199-205; final agree
ment of, with the State, ii. 266-267.

16.

Eavis, Thomas, prolocutor of Convo
cation, i. 347; Bishop of London,
ii. 48, 142.

Reconstruction in England, a natural
growth, i. 1; ii. 269; problem of,
i. 1-21; leader of (Bancroft), i.
22; made possible by the split of
the Catholic party, i. 186-187;
necessity for reconstruction of the
constitution, i. 191-198; ideas of
early English reformers on, i. 198-
201 ; antecedent conditions of, i.
203-204, 240; helped by the ac
cession of James I, i. 285-288;
of the constitution, i. 334-
402; episcopal plan of, i. 341;
full scope of in 1604, i. 357-358;

administrative, ii. 20-49; results "Seminaries, i. 133, 163; ii. 197, 198.
of, ii. 263-268; forces which finally Sermon at Paul's Cross, by Bancroft,

accomplished, ii. 269-270; legal op

position to, Book III entire.
Reconstruction in Scotland, ii. 154-

174.

Recusants. See Catholic laity.
Reform, as seen by the Puritans, i.

44-45.
Reformation in England, character

of, i. 1, 41, 239; Bancroft's ideas

of, i. 248.

1588, i. 50-54.
Sidesmen, duties of, i. 98.
Simony, i. 192, 227-228.
Snape, Edmund, Puritan minister, i.

48, 60, 61, 293.

ii. 77-78 ; death of, i. 336.
Spain, and the English Catholics, i.

142, 145, 165, 168, 169; opposes

the second appeal of the seculars,

i. 172, 179.

425

INDEX

Sparke, Thomas, Puritan minister, i.

249, 254, 319 note; ii. 14, 16, 18,

212.
Stanhope, Sir Edward, civilian, i.

335.

Star Chamber, i. 64.
State, influence of, on the Church, i.

40; relation of, to the Church, i.

68-90; disliked by Churchmen, i.

105.
Statutes, authority and interpretation

of, ii. 238-239, 241-244.
Subscription, i. 39, 349; importance

of, to the Church, i. 361, 362;

psychology of, in 1603, i. 362-365;

history of, i. 365; growth of forms

for, during Elizabeth, i. 365-375;

enforced in 1604-1605, i. 403-423;

reasons against, i. 407, 416; ii.

122, 247; defended by Bancroft,

1606, ii. 120, 123.

Supremacy, Act of, (1 Eliz. c. 1.) ba
sis of the High Commission, i.

103, 191; ii. 140, 146, 216, 236,

237, 242-243.
Survey of the Holy Discipline, tract

of Bancroft's, i. 66.
Synods, i. 43, 44, 48, 52.

Taxation of clergy, by the State, ef
fect of, upon the Church, i. 116,
223-225; ii. 264; by clergy, i. 224
note.

Tithes, history of, before the refor
mation, i. 229-232 ; influence of
reformation on, i. 232-233; ii. 60-
62; effect upon, of the rise in
prices, i. 233-237 ; proposal to re
store tithing in kind, i. 337-339; ii.
54-57, 247-248, 255-258; legal
authority for, ii. 56-57 ; obstacles
against the restoration of tithing
in kind, ii. 57-73 ; treble value and
its recovery, ii. 234-235, 243-244.

Toleration, not believed in by the
reformers, i. 18-20, 199, 394; Puri
tans not believers in, ii. 110, 111;

for Catholics, i. 162-163, 166, 168,

176, 180.
Tracts, Catholic, i. 166, 170, 171, 174,

178, 189-190, 346, 347; ii. 91, 183,

185; Puritan, i. 46, 49, 55, 66; ii.

115-116.
Travers, Walter, i. 27, 28, 43, 48, 69.

Uniformity, Act of,(l Eliz. c. 2,) i. 191.

Visitations, Puritan idea to reform,
i. 44; place of, in the ecclesiastical
fabric, i. 93, 98; ii. 23-25; weak
ness of, i. 93-100, 116-118; ii. 20-
22; attempt to reform, by Parker,
ii. 26, 35; by Whitgift, ii. 26-27,
35, 40, 42 ; by Bancroft, ii. 28-49.

Visitation Articles, important part
of the constitution, i. 378; in
fluence of, on the growth of the
Canons of 1604, i. 378-382; codifi
cation of 1576, i. 360; ii. 28; codi
fication of 1605, ii. 28-29; prece
dent for, ii. 289-292.

Visitation Articles of 1576, most im
portant administrative document of
Elizabeth's reign, i. 360; ii. 28,
289-290.

Ward, Samuel, Puritan minister, i.
254, 258, 259, 404; ii. 14-16.

Watson, William, secular priest, i.
172, 174, 175, 183-185, 302-305, 346.

Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Can
terbury, i. 29, 35; conceptions, of
relation of Church and State, i. 69-
72; reforms of, 100-101, 360, 371-
373; ii. 26-27, 35, 40, 42; cham
pions Bancroft, i. 113-314; ii. 366-
369; at Elizabeth's death bed, i.
187 ; relations of, with James I, i.
298, 301, 307; attacks prohibitions,
ii. 77-78; death of, i. 336.

Warden. See Churchwarden.

Wilcox, Thomas, Puritan minister,
i. 254, 262, 293, 329.

Wisbeach, Castle of, prison for Catho
lics, i. 120.

426

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